Posted on 08/31/2007 7:49:29 AM PDT by TChris
Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species.
The research, reported in today's Science, also shows that lateral gene transfer—the movement of genes between unrelated species—may happen much more frequently between bacteria and multicellular organisms than scientists previously believed, posing dramatic implications for evolution.
Such large-scale heritable gene transfers may allow species to acquire new genes and functions extremely quickly, says Jack Werren, a principal investigator of the study. If such genes provide new abilities in species that cause or transmit disease, they could provide new targets for fighting these diseases.
The results also have serious repercussions for genome-sequencing projects. Bacterial DNA is routinely discarded when scientists are assembling invertebrate genomes, yet these genes may very well be part of the organism's genome, and might even be responsible for functioning traits.
"This study establishes the widespread occurrence and high frequency of a process that we would have dismissed as science fiction until just a few years ago," says W. Ford Doolittle, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Microbial Genomics at Dalhousie University, who is not connected to the study. "This is stunning evidence for increased frequency of gene transfer."
"It didn't seem possible at first," says Werren, professor of biology at the University of Rochester and a world-leading authority on the parasite, called wolbachia. "This parasite has implanted itself inside the cells of 70 percent of the world's invertebrates, coevolving with them. And now, we've found at least one species where the parasite's entire or nearly entire genome has been absorbed and integrated into the host's. The host's genes actually hold the coding information for a completely separate species."
(Excerpt) Read more at rochester.edu ...
If a human inserted her DNA inside a whale’s, we’d label that intelligent intervention.
Are you attributing a mind to a strand of DNA? Define “deliberate.”
Non-accidental. Not happenstance.
Are you attributing a mind to the strand of DNA? Or perhaps suggesting that an unseen entity is directing the process? Aliens, perhaps? Or demiurges?
What exactly are you suggesting?
An active life form has some level of sentience, yes?!
So you are suggesting that a strand of DNA is conscious, and acts with conscious intention?
“What did the bacteria know, and when did it know it?!”
I highly doubt an amoeba is sentient but then again, I haven’t spoken to any lately.
“I highly doubt an amoeba is sentient but then again, I haven’t spoken to any lately.”
Well, had a conversation with a cabbage and a coral reef just yesterday.
Will you publish a paper in Science magazine to explain your position?
Sound kind of like mitochondria to me.
Excellent question! This new find may unravel everything they think they know about gene sequencing.
and?
Are there still those cabbage/coral reef tensions that they’ve had for years? Their relations just haven’t been the same since the Reef Riot of ‘96...
(did we just turn this into the Friday silliness thread?)
I have been wondering for years what would happen if you took a human gene, removed the parasitic bits, and grew the remainder.
Not sure I want to know, but I am dang curious...
No, those were the reefer riots.
Smoked the cabbagers right out.
What Friday sillinews?
It sounds like a much more likely way for new species to evolve than the old Darwinst theory.
It sounds like a much more likely way for new species to evolve than the old Darwinist theory.
Studying DNA makes for a great career ladder.
(that joke replicated via PCR)
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