looks like God did another “gene splice” miracle ...
From
Tardigrades have a huge amount—17.5 percent—of foreign DNA, a new study says.
A team sequenced the genome of a tardigrade species Hypsibius dujardini "to try to understand how it is that some animals can survive some amazingly extreme conditions,†co-author Bob Goldstein, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says via email.
They found the H. dujardini genome is material from several entirely different kingdoms—mostly bacterial (16 percent) but also fungal (0.7 percent), plant (0.5 percent), archaeal (0.1 percent), and viral (0.1 percent).
“We never expected to find that an animal genome would be quite so littered with foreign genes," said Goldstein, whose study was published November 23 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The tardigrade acquires foreign DNA via a process called horizontal gene transfer, in which genetic material is transferred directly between organisms instead of being passed down from parent to offspring.
The discovery of other DNA in the tardigrade is "really peculiar," says co-author Thomas Boothby, also a biologist at UNC.
“Many animals appear to have a small degree of horizontal gene transfer, including humans,†Boothby says. “But nowhere close to the proportion [about one-sixth of genes) that we see in the tardigrade genome.â€
“What this tells us is that instead of thinking about a tree of life, we can start to think more about a web of life, where genetic material from one branch, say the bacterial branch, can cross over to the animal branch.â€