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PARAMUTATION. "In epigenetics, a paramutation is an interaction between two alleles at a single locus, whereby one allele induces a heritable change in the other allele. This change is meiotically inheritable, and therefore paramutation violates Mendel’s first law." https://lnkd.in/eTKtQvg View in LinkedIn

MOBILE ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE (AR) GENES. "Sommer et al., functionally characterized the AR reservoir in the human gut microbiota; many AR genes identified using a culture-independent approach are evolutionarily distant from known resistance genes, first demonstrating the immense diversity of AR genes in the human microbiome." https://lnkd.in/ek24FD7 View in LinkedIn

"PRION-LIKE DOMAINS as epigenetic regulators, scaffolds for subcellular organization, and drivers of neurodegenerative disease." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899316300968 View in LinkedIn

HGT AND ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. "Culture-independent sampling in conjunction with a functional cloning approach identified diverse antibiotic resistance genes for different classes of antibiotics in gut microbiomes from both conventionally raised and free-range chickens. Many of the genes are phylogenetically distant from known resistance genes." (HGT = Horizontal Gene Transfer). https://lnkd.in/ek24FD7 View in LinkedIn

PRIONS AND EPIGENETICS. "Prions as epigenetic regulators in yeast. Prions in yeast are often benign and can even confer selective advantages." https://lnkd.in/e38XmS8 View in LinkedIn

NO ANTIBIOTIC MARKER GENES PLEASE. "There is a lack of data on the real rates of HGT between transgenic plants and microbes, and hence prestigious groups around the world, such as WHO, FAO, and the NAS, are urging researchers to produce transgenic plants without antibiotic resistance markers." A wise precautionary principle given what we know about horizontal gene transfer (HGT). http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

VALIDATION OF PRION VEHICLES. "Altogether, the data presented in this study provide support for and highlight exosomes as extracellular vesicles which facilitate intercellular prion transmission." http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2016/01/14/jbc.M115.684258.short View in LinkedIn

HGT IN GMOs? "How serious is the threat of HGT from transgenic plants to bacteria? Transgenic plant-to-microbe HGT has been shown to occur under experimental conditions when the bacteria already contained a form of the plant transgene, but gene transfer from transgenic plants to bacteria has never been shown occurring in the field." Quaint at best. http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/oct0501.htm View in LinkedIn

IDEAL PRION VEHICLE. "Given the reported presence of exosomes in biological fluids as well as the lipid and nucleic acid contents of exosomes, these vesicles represent an ideal mechanism for encapsulating prions and potential cofactors to facilitate prion transmission." http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2016/01/14/jbc.M115.684258.short View in LinkedIn

ACCUMULATING COMPLEXITY. "For if there is any purpose legible at all in the millennia of human history, it is in the unflagging persistence with which we add to the complexity of the universe." This has been the pervasive mantra since Darwin. https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn