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What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the transmission of a gene from one species to another by means other than direct vertical descent from a common ancestor, has been recognized as an important phenomenon in the evolutionary biology of prokaryotes. In eukaryotes, in contrast, the importance of HGT has...

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Autor principal: Danchin, Étienne G.J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Landes Bioscience 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545237
http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/mge.18776
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author Danchin, Étienne G.J.
author_facet Danchin, Étienne G.J.
author_sort Danchin, Étienne G.J.
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description Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the transmission of a gene from one species to another by means other than direct vertical descent from a common ancestor, has been recognized as an important phenomenon in the evolutionary biology of prokaryotes. In eukaryotes, in contrast, the importance of HGT has long been overlooked and its evolutionary significance has been considered to be mostly negligible. However, a series of genome analyses has now shown that HGT not only do probably occur at a higher frequency than originally thought in eukaryotes but recent examples have also shown that they have been subject to natural selection, thus suggesting a significant role in the evolutionary history of the receiver species. Surprisingly, these examples are not from protists in which integration and fixation of foreign genes intuitively appear relatively straightforward, because there is no clear distinction between the germline and the somatic genome. Instead, these examples are from nematodes, multicellular animals that do have distinct cells and tissues and do possess a separate germline. Hence, the mechanisms of gene transfer appears in this case much more complicated. In this commentary, I will further discuss two recent publications that describe HGT in nematodes, one that highlights the importance of HGT in the emergence of plant parasitism and another one that probably represents the most convincing example of a potential transfer between two different metazoan animals, an insect and a nematode.
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spelling pubmed-33371352012-05-07 What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals Danchin, Étienne G.J. Mob Genet Elements Commentary Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the transmission of a gene from one species to another by means other than direct vertical descent from a common ancestor, has been recognized as an important phenomenon in the evolutionary biology of prokaryotes. In eukaryotes, in contrast, the importance of HGT has long been overlooked and its evolutionary significance has been considered to be mostly negligible. However, a series of genome analyses has now shown that HGT not only do probably occur at a higher frequency than originally thought in eukaryotes but recent examples have also shown that they have been subject to natural selection, thus suggesting a significant role in the evolutionary history of the receiver species. Surprisingly, these examples are not from protists in which integration and fixation of foreign genes intuitively appear relatively straightforward, because there is no clear distinction between the germline and the somatic genome. Instead, these examples are from nematodes, multicellular animals that do have distinct cells and tissues and do possess a separate germline. Hence, the mechanisms of gene transfer appears in this case much more complicated. In this commentary, I will further discuss two recent publications that describe HGT in nematodes, one that highlights the importance of HGT in the emergence of plant parasitism and another one that probably represents the most convincing example of a potential transfer between two different metazoan animals, an insect and a nematode. Landes Bioscience 2011-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC3337135/ /pubmed/22545237 http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/mge.18776 Text en Copyright © 2011 Landes Bioscience http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an open-access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. The article may be redistributed, reproduced, and reused for non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is properly cited.
spellingShingle Commentary
Danchin, Étienne G.J.
What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title_full What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title_fullStr What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title_full_unstemmed What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title_short What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
title_sort what nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22545237
http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/mge.18776
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