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WO BACTERIOPHAGE VIRUSES IN WOLBACHIA. "Screening of Wolbachia infections from a variety of invertebrate hosts indicate that prophage WO (named after Wolbachia) is widespread in the genus." https://lnkd.in/dG3vir9 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE concludes this weekend on the Wolbachia theme which reveals unusual gene transfers during parasitism. Parasitism has long been likened to an arms race, although like everything else in Nature, there is a broad Bell curve. Between the Wolbachia bacteria, the bacteriophage WO virus that preys on the Wolbachia bacteria, and the eukaryotic host, there is shown to be liberal gene exchange, enriching the adaptive toolbox. More than likely, this is far from an isolated case. https://lnkd.in/dZe2vg8 View in LinkedIn

GENE OWNERSHIP. "Plasmids and bacteriophages may induce cell death in the host (or non-host daughter) cell. Whether or not this is considered an example of programmed organismal death, of course, hinges on whether or not selfish genetic elements are considered part of the organismal genome. The benefits in this case are straightforward and focused on the level of the selfish genetic element." View in LinkedIn

PARADOXICAL POISON AND ANTIDOTE. "In prokaryotes, conjugative plasmids often encode for the simultaneous production of long-lived toxins and short-lived antitoxins. When these are present together, the toxin is harmless to the host. However, if one daughter cell is cured of the plasmid, it will inherit toxic cytoplasm without a source of antitoxin and will die. While this is easily explained as a ‘selfish’ adaptation on the part of the plasmid, chromosomally-encoded toxin-antitoxin systems probably do not function in gene-level competition." https://www.linkedin.com/redir/general-malware-page?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2eesciencecentral%2eorg%2Fjournals%2Fare-internal-death-promoting-mechanisms-ever-adaptive-2329-9002%2e1000113%2epdf View in LinkedIn

SELFISH MOBILE GENETIC ELEMENTS. "In some cases, this peculiar form of selection may explain the function and evolution of genes for unicell POD. When a cell has low chances for reproduction, POD and the transfer of genes from the dying cell to a new host can save the genes. This process may be associated with occurrence of new mutations in the transferred genes and their improved ability to survive in the new host." (POD = programmed organismal death). View in LinkedIn

GREY ZONE CREATURES. "In eukaryotes as well, the distinction between unicellular and multicellular is not always completely clear. For example, the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoidium, is unicellular during part of its life cycle, but upon starvation, cells aggregate and develop into a multicellular motile slug, then fruiting body. Stalk cell death is programmed and is characterized by some classic features of POD." (POD = programmed organismal death). View in LinkedIn

DEATH GLUE. "Recent studies have revealed that the regulated death of bacterial cells is important for biofilm development. Following cell death, a sub-population of the dead bacteria lyse and release genomic DNA, which then has an essential role in intercellular adhesion and biofilm stability." https://lnkd.in/dm2ekKx View in LinkedIn

BIOFILMS. "Some groups of bacterial cells are functionally organized. In lamentous cyanobacteria such as Calothrix and Trichodesmium, poor conditions induce POD in some cells. Because the lament often breaks up as a result, the function of POD in this system could be filament dispersal in response to unfavorable environmental conditions." (POD = programmed organismal death). View in LinkedIn

REF FOR TODAY’S POST. Are Internal, Death-Promoting Mechanisms Ever Adaptive?" "John W Pepper, Deborah E Shelton, Armin Rashidi and Pierre M Durand" "Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology View in LinkedIn

NOVEL FINDING. "Among this subset with eukaryotic sequence homology, the protein domains are almost exclusively found in the phage EAM. An EAM has never before been reported in bacteriophage genomes, to our knowledge, possibly because phages of obligate intracellular bacteria occupy a unique eukaryotic-enclosed niche and are relatively understudied." (EAM = eukaryotic association module). https://lnkd.in/dYh3-r4 View in LinkedIn