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FASTER EVOLUTION. "Accelerated rates of regulatory gene evolution have been shown to accompany rapid morphological diversification in adaptive radiations, demonstrating a link between morphological and genetic diversification in regulatory regions of developmental genes." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

THE NEW ANTIBIOTIC? "Phages killing bacteria had been used for almost 100 years as antibacterial therapy before the discovery of antibiotics. Phage cocktails were utilized in the Soviet Union in the Russian-Finnish war to avoid amputations on injured soldiers. Phage therapy is currently not fashionable in Western medicine, although it may gain attention again if resistance of bacteria to antibiotics continues to grow and increase the danger for human health." https://lnkd.in/eGaw2Kq View in LinkedIn

DIFFERENTIAL SELECTION. "In plants, where gene duplication followed by differential selection on resulting copies enables novel regulatory networks to form, in part or in whole, regulatory evolution must be investigated in the context of these networks." https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

VIRUSES CREATE GENETIC DIVERSITY. "Virus infection of a cell is a very efficient way to supply novel genetic information. A viral infection is more efficient in generating genetic diversity than mutations of cellular genes." https://lnkd.in/eGaw2Kq View in LinkedIn

California's wildflower 'super bloom' transforms landscapes into paintings http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/14/weather/california-super-bloom/index.html View in LinkedIn

ANTIGENIC SHIFT. "The reassortment of complete units of genetic material results in the formation of ‘reassortants’ or ‘mosaic’ viruses. At times, ‘genetic reassortment’ affects the exchange of genome segments encoding the viral surface proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Thereby, the virus achieves a new antigenic pattern." https://lnkd.in/d8xM5QF View in LinkedIn

APPEARANCE OF HOMOLOGY. "As was recently demonstrated for the regulation of the floral homeotic gene AGAMOUS by orthologues of LEAFY in different flowering plants, variation in TF binding sites can simultaneously form the basis for conserved as well as divergent regulatory interactions, leading to novel phenotypes: observed changes in expression patterns that appear to be similar may not be caused by homologous genetic processes." (TF = transcription factors). https://lnkd.in/dD4GcAS View in LinkedIn

GENETIC SHUFFLING. "Besides mutations, viruses with segmented genomes change genetically through ‘genetic reassortment’. The latter term denotes the exchange of one or more genome segments between two related viruses which infect a host cell at the same time. During such a double infection the construction plans of both viruses become replicated in one host cell." https://lnkd.in/d8xM5QF View in LinkedIn

SUPER FAST EVOLUTION. "Three characteristics contribute to the rapid evolution of these viruses: large populations, short generation times and high mutation rates. Every mutation, which enables its carrier to evade the host’s immune system, will be (positively) selected, passed on to the next generation and distributed more widely. Influenza viruses evolve 1 million times faster than mammals. Five years of virus evolution roughly correspond to the time span, which separates humans and chimpanzees from their last common ancestor." https://lnkd.in/d8xM5QF View in LinkedIn

KEY FACTORS OF VIRUSES. "Most pathogens have large population sizes and short generation times. This is particularly true for viruses. The complete replication-cycle of a virus within a host cell often takes only a few hours and results in many thousands new viruses. Because the viral RNA-polymerase does not possess a proof-reading-function, faulty nucleotides are integrated during replication with a likelihood of 10(-3) to 10(-4), which results in high mutation rates. In fact, the error rate of the viral RNA-polymerase is 1000 times higher than the error rate of the human DNA- polymerase." https://lnkd.in/d8xM5QF View in LinkedIn