An analysis suggests that DNA cribbed from soil microbes enabled plants’ ancestors to colonize a terrestrial environment.

A re-analysis of sequencing data from a 2016 study of these tiny metazoans reveals possible contamination, rather than an exchange of DNA among species.

Rather than getting a gene for its original function, a horizontal gene transfer provides the raw material for evolutionary innovation.

The presence of similar light-emitting enzymes in the distantly related organisms lends new insight into bioluminescence evolution.

The plant Lophophytum pilfers mitochondrial genes from the species it parasitizes.

In the DNA of the WO phage, which infects arthropod-inhabiting Wolbachia, researchers find sequences related to a black widow spider’s toxin and other animal genes.

Bacteria inhabit most tissues in the human body, and genes from some of these microbes have made their way to the human genome. Could this genetic transfer contribute to diseases such as cancer?

DNA transfer is a regular event among bacteria, and research over the past decade has shown that microbes can also shuttle their genetic material to multicellular hosts.

Researchers find evidence of gene flow from parasitoid wasps to the butterflies and moths they lay eggs in.