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Related Concept Videos

Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms02:18

Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms

Genetic transfer occurs when genetic information is passed from one organism to another. It occurs via two mechanisms: vertical gene transfer and horizontal gene transfer. Vertical gene transfer occurs when genetic information is transferred from one generation to the next, which happens much more frequently than horizontal gene transfer. Both sexual and asexual reproduction are forms of vertical gene transfer, where one or more organisms pass some or all of their genome onto their progeny.
Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms02:18

Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms

Genetic transfer occurs when genetic information is passed from one organism to another. It occurs via two mechanisms: vertical gene transfer and horizontal gene transfer. Vertical gene transfer occurs when genetic information is transferred from one generation to the next, which happens much more frequently than horizontal gene transfer. Both sexual and asexual reproduction are forms of vertical gene transfer, where one or more organisms pass some or all of their genome onto their progeny.
Horizontal Gene Transfer01:27

Horizontal Gene Transfer

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a process where genetic material moves between organisms within the same generation, unlike vertical gene transfer, which occurs from parent to offspring. HGT plays a crucial role in microbial evolution, adaptation, and survival, particularly in shared environments like the human gut.Mobile genetic elements such as plasmids, prophages, integrons, insertion sequences, and transposons facilitate this process. HGT occurs through three primary mechanisms:...
Transduction01:16

Transduction

Among the three main modes of HGT—transformation, conjugation, and transduction—transduction is unique in that it is mediated by bacteriophages, or bacterial viruses.Transduction occurs in two ways. Generalized transduction occurs during the lytic cycle of a bacteriophage infection. In this process, bacteriophages infect bacterial cells, replicate within them, and ultimately cause cell lysis, releasing newly assembled virions. Occasionally, random fragments of the bacterial genome are...
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes03:21

Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes

While every living organism has a genome of some kind (be it RNA, or DNA), there is considerable variation in the sizes of these blueprints. One major factor that impacts genome size is whether the organism is prokaryotic or eukaryotic. In prokaryotes, the genome contains little to no non-coding sequence, such that genes are tightly clustered in groups or operons sequentially along the chromosome. Conversely, the genes in eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of non-coding sequence.
Viral Recombination00:57

Viral Recombination

Cells are sometimes infected by more than one virus at once. When two viruses disassemble to expose their genomes for replication in the same cell, similar regions of their genomes can pair together and exchange sequences in a process called recombination. Alternatively, viruses with segmented genomes can swap segments in a process called reassortment.

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Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications
07:37

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications

Published on: January 19, 2018

Lateral gene transfer from the dead.

Gergely J Szöllosi1, Eric Tannier, Nicolas Lartillot

  • 1Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5558, Université Lyon 1, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France. ssolo@elte.hu

Systematic Biology
|January 29, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Lateral gene transfer complicates evolutionary studies. This research models gene evolution along extinct lineages, improving phylogenetic analysis accuracy for sampled species, especially with limited data.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Phylogenetics
  • Genomics

Background:

  • Phylogenetic studies traditionally assume molecular evolution follows ancestral lineages.
  • Lateral gene transfer (LGT) challenges this by involving extinct or unsampled species.
  • Reconstructing complete species phylogenies is infeasible.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a method for analyzing gene evolution in the context of LGT and extinct lineages.
  • To improve phylogenetic reconciliation by accounting for unsampled evolutionary history.
  • To quantify the impact of extinct lineages on gene transfer events.

Main Methods:

  • Modeling speciation dynamics to represent complete phylogenies.
  • Approximating gene evolution along extinct lineages as independent.
  • Deriving an algorithm for gene tree probability and maximum-likelihood reconciliation.

Main Results:

  • The majority of LGT events involve extinct or unsampled lineages when sampled species are few.
  • Gene evolution along extinct lineages can be modeled using global parameters.
  • A new algorithm was developed for phylogenetic reconciliation.
  • Analysis of cyanobacteria revealed 28% of transfers show signatures of evolution along extinct species.

Conclusions:

  • Extinct lineages significantly impact gene transfer event interpretation in phylogenetics.
  • The developed method accurately reconciles gene trees with species phylogenies.
  • Most gene transfers in the study originated after the common ancestor of sampled cyanobacteria.