horizontal gene transfer

Studies The Scientist covered this year illustrate the expanding importance of genetic and genomic research in all aspects of life science, from ecology to medicine.

A newly identified gene family named “parasitoid killing factor” is found in both insect-infecting viruses and their hosts, although researchers can’t yet tell where they originated.

A study of human populations around the world detects differing rates of horizontal gene transfer in the microbiome depending on what kind of society those people live in.

Whiteflies overcome a toxin in plants they eat through the use of the plant’s own genetic protection, likely ferried from plant to insect millions of years ago by a virus.

Entire organelles bearing DNA move between strains of tobacco that were grafted to one another.

Their relocation explains horizontal genome transfer first described more than a decade ago.

Rather than introducing small chunks of DNA as other viruses do, some giant viruses can contribute more than 1 million base pairs to a host’s genome, broadening the ways in which viruses may shape eukaryote evolution.

Plants, fungi, and bacteria likely contributed to insect diversity.

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.

Zebrafish and other vertebrates have the enzymatic machinery to synthesize gadusol, an ultraviolet light-absorbing compound.

Foreign genes in animal genomes may be of bacterial or fungal origin, according to a new analysis.