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CELL FRAGMENT SURPRISE. "DNA fragmentation is a biochemical hallmark of apoptosis. It was shown that horizontal DNA transfer between mammalian cells can occur through the uptake of apoptotic bodies, where genes from the apoptotic cells were transferred to neighbouring cells phagocytosing the apoptotic bodies." https://lnkd.in/evv6az7 View in LinkedIn

NO SPECIES BARRIER. "Because of their prevalence, phages are likely to play an important role in gene transfer in the environment. Although it used to be thought that phages only rarely crossed species boundaries, broad-host-range (BHR) generalized transducing phages that can transfer genes between species and genera have recently been discovered at high frequency in different natural environments." https://lnkd.in/eXE-r93 View in LinkedIn

OLD DEBATE. "Horizontal gene transfer involves the exchange of genetic material between different organisms in a single generation. Evidently, once transferred, natural selection can determine which genes spread throughout populations. But the acquisition of novel genes in a single generation, in my point of view, is far from the gradualist or slow-change principle proposed by the neo-Darwinians, and it has a certain Lamarckian taste." https://lnkd.in/eVQ_4UY View in LinkedIn

HIGHLY ADAPTIVE. "HGT can promote adaptation to new environments by allowing molecular innovations to be traded within ecological niches. For example, HGT has enhanced bacterial adaptation to life in environments containing heavy metals and toxic organic compounds." https://lnkd.in/ej6mCcR View in LinkedIn

ILLUSIVE AND SLIPPERY. "Mobile elements as varied as conjugative transposons, transposable prophages, integrative plasmids and mobile integrons appear on first inspection to be extremely difficult to detect and categorize systematically." https://lnkd.in/ej6mCcR View in LinkedIn

NICHE EXPLOITIVE GENES are susceptible to lateral gene transfer. "We do find extensive evidence for the preferential transfer of metabolic genes: acquisition of such genes would allow organisms to gain access to new energy and nutrient sources, thereby increasing their ability to colonize or compete in the environment." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn

ENORMOUS DIVERSITY. "One significant barrier to incorporating information about the mechanism of HGT into genomic analyses is the sheer diversity of mobile elements that are known to exist." https://lnkd.in/ej6mCcR View in LinkedIn

SOME GENES ARE SUSCEPTIBLE to lateral gene transfer, others less so: "informational genes including 16S rDNA are particularly resistant to LGT, and cell wall and cell division proteins tend to be inherited vertically. Integral components of the ribosome show a strong tendency toward vertical descent...aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which interact at a single common site on the exterior of the ribosome, frequently show evidence of LGT." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn

BOLT-ON ELEMENTS. "Mobile DNA elements are mosaics of functional modules." https://lnkd.in/ej6mCcR View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER by mobile genetic elements: how frequent is it in prokaryotes? One large study grappled with the question. "From 422,971 proteins in 144 genomes we generated and aligned 22,432 orthologous sets (families) of size 4 or greater, covering 220,240 proteins (52.1%) in total to answer the question of the frequency of horizontal (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT)." https://lnkd.in/e5eZ_2E View in LinkedIn