Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the transfer of genetic material between distinct species, a process that plays a major role in the evolution of a genome. There is an increasing body of evidence for the transfer of genes between eukaryotes, but the complexities of transcription and translation regulation in eukaryotes have always been thought to be a barrier to HGT. In the July 10
Bergthorsson et al. surveyed the mitochondrial gene content of a number of angiosperms and found distribution anomalies. Phylogenetic analysis of two mitochondrial ribosomal protein genes—