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Science

Plants and Animals Sometimes Take Genes From Bacteria, Study Suggests (sciencemag.org) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the take-what-you-need dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: Many genome studies have shown that prokaryotes—bacteria and archaea -- liberally swap genes among species, which influences their evolution. The initial sequencing of the human genome suggested our species, too, has picked up microbial genes. But further work demonstrated that such genes found in vertebrate genomes were often contaminants introduced during sequencing. [...] Debashish Bhattacharya, an evolutionary genomicist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and UD plant biochemist Andreas Weber took a closer look at a possible case of bacteria-to-eukaryote gene transfer that [William Martin, a biologist that concluded that there is no significant ongoing transfer of prokaryotic genes into eukaryotes, has challenged in 2015]. The initial sequencing of genomes from two species of red algae called Cyanidiophyceae had indicated that up to 6% of their DNA had a prokaryotic origin. These so-called extremophiles, which live in acidic hot springs and even inside rock, can't afford to maintain superfluous DNA. They appear to contain only genes needed for survival. "When we find a bacterial gene, we know it has an important function or it wouldn't last" in the genome, Bhattacharya says.

He and Weber turned to a newer technology that deciphers long pieces of DNA. The 13 red algal genomes they studied contain 96 foreign genes, nearly all of them sandwiched between typical algal genes in the DNA sequenced, which makes it unlikely they were accidentally introduced in the lab. "At the very least, this argument that [putative transferred genes are] all contamination should finally be obsolete," says Gerald Schoenknecht, a plant physiologist at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. The transferred genes seem to transport or detoxify heavy metals, or they help the algae extract nourishment from the environment or cope with high temperature and other stressful conditions. "By acquiring genes from extremophile prokaryotes, these red algae have adapted to more and more extreme environments," Schoenknecht says. While Martin says the new evidence doesn't persuade him, several insect researchers say they see evidence of such gene transfer. "I've moved beyond asking 'if [the bacterial genes] are there,' to how they work," says John McCutcheon, a biologist at Montana State University in Missoula who studies mealy bugs. The red algae, he adds, "is a very clear case."
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Plants and Animals Sometimes Take Genes From Bacteria, Study Suggests More

Plants and Animals Sometimes Take Genes From Bacteria, Study Suggests

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  • Is this new? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @08:14AM (#58054694) Journal
    As the human genome as embedded entire viruses and bacterial genes can be transported by virus-like creatures (Phages), I would think this was old news.

  • Plants and Animals Sometimes Take Genes From Bacteria, Study Suggests

    Ok, that is just blatant copyright infringement and IP theft all rolled into one ... the bacteria should lawyer up.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by habig ( 12787 )
      shh! Don't tell the anti-GMO people about this horrible trans-species genetic meddling, or Mother Nature will never hear the end of the protests.

  • They'll just take it from anywhere.

  • But do they know how they got there? They are assuming that like genes necessarily came from bacteria, just as they are assuming that our DNA bits that we share with Neanderthals came from Neanderthals. They are assuming provenance from likeness. Prove it.
    • You can use stuff like GC content to tell where genes came from, the degeneracy of the genetic code means there are different sequences that can make identical proteins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has a rundown. You're basically arguing that DNA tests for identity or paternity are invalid (there are weaknesses with those techniques as used in law enforcement, but mostly just due to the cost of doing it better).
  • This is the reason the GMO scare craze is based completely on ignorance, the techniques used to modify organism are based on mechanisms that happen in nature, we didn't "invent" anything, just copied and added control on what is being modified, and every single organism is genetically modified, from bacteria to the blue whale, through out history of evolution snippets of DNA travel from one species to another, and without any control whatsoever, except that if the change is too bad the individual will die o

    • This is the reason the GMO scare craze is based completely on ignorance

      Sort of. In many cases it is basically an argument from ignorance [wikipedia.org]. Their argument is basically "we can't conclusively prove that nothing bad can happen therefore something bad must/will happen". It's the same sort of clumsy thinking we see in those people who see a UFO, forget what the U stands for, and therefore conclude that it "must be aliens from another planet".

      But people arguing against GMOs sometimes do so from the basis of ethical or economic issues (like patents) which are not necessarily ignora

      • “Pump the brakes a bit” is nowhere near the same thing as triumphantly advertising everything as No GMO. A Europe-like ban is the real aim of this whole labeling movement.

  • There's fungus among us. And malaria in the area.
  • More testing is needed. Interesting hypothesis. Real purpose of this post - someone appears someone to be hunting my posts and modding them troll. I'm occasionally a tad troll-like I'll admit but I'm getting modded down on very reasonable posts. This is bait.

  • '''Debashish Bhattacharya''', an evolutionary genomicist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and UD plant biochemist Andreas Weber took a closer look at a possible case of bacteria-to-eukaryote gene transfer that [William Martin, a biologist that concluded that there is no significant ongoing transfer of prokaryotic genes into eukaryotes, has challenged in 2015].

    Was this a test sentence deliberately crafted to release the blue smoke from Google Translate?

    If I came across this sentence in an

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