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QUITE DISTINCT. "In plants, clonal growth and selfing result from entirely different structures and processes, and the selective forces responsible for their respective origins and maintenance are quite distinct." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn

PLURAL RAMETS = GENET. "Ramet "and “genet” refer to the unit or module of clonal growth (shoot) and the entire clone or genotype, respectively. A genet is therefore a collection of ramets descended from a single seedling arising from sexual reproduction. The ramets of a clone may or may not be physically separated and physiologically autonomous, depending on the type of clonal strategy." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn

GENETS BEGET RAMETS. "The commonest type of asexual reproduction is clonal growth (vegetative propagation) in which parental genotypes (genets) produce vegetative modules (ramets) that are capable of independent growth, reproduction, and often dispersal." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this consideration of the most abundant protein fold in nature. It is also one of the most functionally flexible. It is a case study of how nature borrows from the existing toolbox of molecular and genetic options to elaborate innovative structures, continually modifying an existing template to find new functionality. Viruses are at the cutting edge of lifestyle innovation, and their promiscuous gene sharing has led to an abundance of their tools in other kingdoms. View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTIONARY BENEFITS. "Clonal reproduction also provides several evolutionary benefits, including avoidance of the costs associated with sexual reproduction and a means by which adaptive genotypes can be replicated rapidly after colonization of new environments." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8859.full View in LinkedIn

OTHER SPAWN. "These ancient cellular genes, encoding cellular proteins with the HK97-like fold, might have independently given rise to the viral proteins with different topologies and insertional domains. Adaptation to more complex environments of higher level organisms such as animal cells could have naturally led to acquisition of additional structures by way of insertions at locations of the loops of the HK97-like fold, as revealed in eukaryotic viruses such as herpesviruses. Such insertional domains could also give rise to auxiliary proteins by way of gene splicing such as the proposed case between BPP-1 and P22-like phages." http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/biophy.2015.2.200/fulltext.html View in LinkedIn

MORE PLASTIC ADAPTATION. "Relying to various degrees on vegetative reproduction, the capacity to conserve or reverse gene regulation changes over cell divisions has clear potential for optimization of plasticity and acclimation in response to environmental variation encountered. Clonal plants may be one of the best examples of organisms taking advantage of epigenetic acclimation as an alternative to the slower mechanisms of adaptation through natural selection." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-014-0430-z View in LinkedIn

GENE EVOLUTION. "The gene encoding one of these topologies might have evolved from the other through non-circular permutation in ancient cells through horizontal gene transfer—a rule for evolution in the prokaryotic world. In fact, although rare, non-circular permutation has been observed in cells, as exemplified by bacterial DNA methyltransferases." https://lnkd.in/dQSWuND View in LinkedIn

CLONES AND EPIGENETICS. "We examine how epigenetics may confer ecological advantages to clonal plants that could outweigh these evolutionary costs." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11258-014-0430-z View in LinkedIn

MORE KINGDOMS USING TEMPLATES. "Viruses likely originated from ancient cells through encapsulating cellular plasmids or genome fragments by cellular protein. Indeed, cellular complexes resembling the structure and topology of HK97 gp5 have been found in both bacteria and archaea cells. Similarly, it is natural to expect that cellular proteins with the BPP-1 topology of the HK97-like fold also exist elsewhere." http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/biophy.2015.2.200/fulltext.html View in LinkedIn