5 ms·

Scientists Learn How Genes Can Jump Between Species

45 points by mudil 11y ago

ergothus 11y ago
Article doesn't match the headline at all. The study seems to say "Hey, when your body produces and injects viruses into a host, you can transfer genes", which is obviously a small subset of biological interactions. It also casually lumps horizontal transfer between bacteria into the same category as multicellular life. We _know_ how bacteria do it, and it's not how most eukaryotic cells are built.
riemannzeta 11y ago
It is truly amazing how similar this is to the descolada in Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead Quite a visionary that man.
SixSigma 11y ago
Minor nitpick: "Genes typically persist if they provide some benefit." Or genes persist if they don't provide some detriment. Evolution is a value maximising process, so it minimises costs of reproduction.
- eivarv 11y ago
  This is actually important to note.
Amorymeltzer 11y ago
Here's the actual study - http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1005470 http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jou... - it's in PLOS Genetics so it's open access for all. The basic gist is that some parasitic wasps also transfer a virus to their caterpillar hosts. That virus has now been shown to insert and transfer some wasps genes to some non-host caterpillars. The introduction mentions wolbachia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia - which is an awesome bacterial parasite; it has also transferred genes to hosts. Researchers thought the bacteriophage in Wolbachia helped take part in horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which this study backs up nicely.
- jhedwards 11y ago
  My grandfather found a parthenogenetic spider and wanted to investigate the possibility that Wolbachia was somehow responsible. Don't think he made much progress though, it was near the end of his life. Here's the article about the spider: http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v31_n2/arac-031-02-0274.pdf http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v31_n2/arac-...
- eivarv 11y ago
  That's pretty cool. Semi-relevant: Richard Dawkins touches upon the relationship between the genes of parasites and hosts in the Chap. 13, "The Long Reach of the Gene" (added in 2. ed.) of his book "The Selfish Gene". He says that if the parasite genes are "transmitted to future generations via the same vehicles as the host's genes [...], the parasite will do all that it can to help the host, not only to survive, but to reproduce. Over evolutionary time it will cease to be a parasite, will cooperate with the host, and may eventually merge into the host's tissues and become unrecognizable as a parasite at all." [0] P.S. Apropos of Wolbachia, did you also play MGS V recently?;P [0]: https://books.google.no/books?id=koaD_Aod_V0C&lpg=PT343&ots=m91oEBweVD&dq=the%20selfish%20gene%20parasite&hl=no&pg=PT343#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.no/books?id=koaD_Aod_V0C&lpg=PT343&ots=...
madaxe_again 11y ago
And between members of a species - virii when reproducing using host cells can end up with transcription errors just as normal dna transcription does - and the host's genes end up part of the virus, which then infects others - this is how virii mutate and jump species. Within 20 years gaian thinking probably won't seem so silly - we are part of a macro organism.
- grkvlt 11y ago
  FYI, the plural of 'virus' is actually 'viruses' [1] according to English dictionaries and reference souces. 1. http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html
- Artistry121 11y ago
  Do you have any reading/watching recommendations for understanding this hypothesis more?
  - smackay 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis edit: replaced with Wikipedia page which has more detail.
  - jerf 11y ago
    Perhaps a more scientific take on it would be to look up the term "co-evolution". Which is also my counter-criticism of the idea that this idea destroys the objection to GMO... the natural mechanisms still co-evolved with us ("us" being the whole biosphere here). It is mathematically reasonable to be concerned that fully artificial genetic manipulation is of a different kind, and not merely of a different quantity. (Even ignoring that in the latter case, sufficient quantity takes on a quality of its own.) Generally I've been pretty positive on GMO food but I have to admit that the mathematical argument against it has a certain potency, when you understand the mathematics of evolution. There is a significant qualitative difference between coevolved mechanisms and artificial mechanisms that ignore that history. I'm still not convinced that our current skills are really great enough to produce some sort of disaster, but that's a debate point with an expiration date on it.
codeddesign 11y ago
So...in other words gmo foods can potentially change human genes or at least add new genes. How in the world would this ever be an argument for gmo foods. ::mind boggled::
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > So...in other words gmo foods can potentially change human genes or at least add new genes. How in the world would this ever be an argument for gmo foods. ::mind boggled:: Its an argument for GMO foods (or, more precisely, an illustration of the naivete of a common argument against GMO foods) in that it illustrates that the processes used in GMO foods (but accelerated and more focused) are not as dissimilar to the processes that are responsible for genetic change in the wild (and which are accelerated and more focused in traditional breeding), so that the difference in kind that anti-GMO crusaders try to draw between evil GMOs, on the one hand, and safe products of traditional breeding, on the other -- on the basis of the methods that produce the genetic changes in each -- is an illusory distinction.
- mudil 11y ago
  Nowhere in the article it says that eating foods is responsible for gene transfers from GMOs into you. The point of research is that gene jump between species. Naturally, through vectors such as viruses. So, when scientists introduce say a rapid-growth potato gene into salmon, it's not necessarily such a far fetched gene manipulation. These types of genetic jumps happen naturally all the time. Opponents of GMOs are very vocal about introduction of "foreign" genes into species. ("How can we have a rapid-growth salmon, if they escape into the environment?" is a typical argument.) But that argument looks pretty feeble if you consider the above mentioned research.
  - 13years 11y ago
    I don't think you need to even consider gene transfer to be concerned about species with new traits impact on the environment. We already have plenty of lessons of introducing existing species outside of their natural environment which resulted in disaster for the local ecosystem.
mikro2nd 11y ago
Smells like teh astroturf to "shape" attitudes towards GMOs.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  I had that same feeling rather early on when I reached this: > Opponents have frequently maintained that an interspecies gene transfer done in a laboratory—the insertion of a bacterial gene into corn to make it insect-resistant, for example—would never occur naturally and is therefore unethical and potentially unsafe. > The new study, published Thursday in the journal PLOS Genetics, undermines that argument. > "You realize that nature is creating genetically modified organisms all the time,” said Salvador Herrero, a geneticist at the University of Valencia, Spain, and co-author of the study. “It’s not so weird to transfer genes from one organism to another. I don't see how these results undermine the argument in any way, _whatsoever_, Mr. Naik. The only way it can undermine an anti-GMO agenda is to "equate" human genetic modifications to nature's genetic modifications. The gene vectors we create are different. Herrero's point laid out here also appears taken out of the scope of the results of the original study. Or, more accurately, Herrero's point was taken out of context by the authors of the WSJ piece.
  - eivarv 11y ago
    I don't think there's much to undermine in the first place, as the opponent argument isn't much of an argument – just an appeal to nature (if I understand their position correctly). Whether the modifications are done by nature or by an agent is irrelevant in itself, as nothing is exclusively inherent to either approach. Any legitimate skepticism would be backed by critique of theory or argument, and/or contributing alternative explanations.
    - 13years 11y ago
      The argument I have heard is that this is part of the basis for the significant difference. Random mutations - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/

45 points by mudil 11y ago

Article doesn't match the headline at all. The study seems to say "Hey, when your body produces and injects viruses into a host, you can transfer genes", which is obviously a small subset of biological interactions. It also casually lumps horizontal transfer between bacteria into the same category as multicellular life. We _know_ how bacteria do it, and it's not how most eukaryotic cells are built.

riemannzeta 11y ago

It is truly amazing how similar this is to the descolada in Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead Quite a visionary that man.

SixSigma 11y ago

Minor nitpick: "Genes typically persist if they provide some benefit." Or genes persist if they don't provide some detriment. Evolution is a value maximising process, so it minimises costs of reproduction.

eivarv 11y ago
This is actually important to note.

Amorymeltzer 11y ago

Here's the actual study - http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1005470 http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jou... - it's in PLOS Genetics so it's open access for all. The basic gist is that some parasitic wasps also transfer a virus to their caterpillar hosts. That virus has now been shown to insert and transfer some wasps genes to some non-host caterpillars. The introduction mentions wolbachia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia - which is an awesome bacterial parasite; it has also transferred genes to hosts. Researchers thought the bacteriophage in Wolbachia helped take part in horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which this study backs up nicely.

jhedwards 11y ago
My grandfather found a parthenogenetic spider and wanted to investigate the possibility that Wolbachia was somehow responsible. Don't think he made much progress though, it was near the end of his life. Here's the article about the spider: http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v31_n2/arac-031-02-0274.pdf http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v31_n2/arac-...
eivarv 11y ago
That's pretty cool. Semi-relevant: Richard Dawkins touches upon the relationship between the genes of parasites and hosts in the Chap. 13, "The Long Reach of the Gene" (added in 2. ed.) of his book "The Selfish Gene". He says that if the parasite genes are "transmitted to future generations via the same vehicles as the host's genes [...], the parasite will do all that it can to help the host, not only to survive, but to reproduce. Over evolutionary time it will cease to be a parasite, will cooperate with the host, and may eventually merge into the host's tissues and become unrecognizable as a parasite at all." [0] P.S. Apropos of Wolbachia, did you also play MGS V recently?;P [0]: https://books.google.no/books?id=koaD_Aod_V0C&lpg=PT343&ots=m91oEBweVD&dq=the%20selfish%20gene%20parasite&hl=no&pg=PT343#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.no/books?id=koaD_Aod_V0C&lpg=PT343&ots=...

madaxe_again 11y ago

And between members of a species - virii when reproducing using host cells can end up with transcription errors just as normal dna transcription does - and the host's genes end up part of the virus, which then infects others - this is how virii mutate and jump species. Within 20 years gaian thinking probably won't seem so silly - we are part of a macro organism.

grkvlt 11y ago
FYI, the plural of 'virus' is actually 'viruses' [1] according to English dictionaries and reference souces. 1. http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/plural-of-virus.html
Artistry121 11y ago
Do you have any reading/watching recommendations for understanding this hypothesis more?
- smackay 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis edit: replaced with Wikipedia page which has more detail.
- jerf 11y ago
  Perhaps a more scientific take on it would be to look up the term "co-evolution". Which is also my counter-criticism of the idea that this idea destroys the objection to GMO... the natural mechanisms still co-evolved with us ("us" being the whole biosphere here). It is mathematically reasonable to be concerned that fully artificial genetic manipulation is of a different kind, and not merely of a different quantity. (Even ignoring that in the latter case, sufficient quantity takes on a quality of its own.) Generally I've been pretty positive on GMO food but I have to admit that the mathematical argument against it has a certain potency, when you understand the mathematics of evolution. There is a significant qualitative difference between coevolved mechanisms and artificial mechanisms that ignore that history. I'm still not convinced that our current skills are really great enough to produce some sort of disaster, but that's a debate point with an expiration date on it.

codeddesign 11y ago

So...in other words gmo foods can potentially change human genes or at least add new genes. How in the world would this ever be an argument for gmo foods. ::mind boggled::

dragonwriter 11y ago
> So...in other words gmo foods can potentially change human genes or at least add new genes. How in the world would this ever be an argument for gmo foods. ::mind boggled:: Its an argument for GMO foods (or, more precisely, an illustration of the naivete of a common argument against GMO foods) in that it illustrates that the processes used in GMO foods (but accelerated and more focused) are not as dissimilar to the processes that are responsible for genetic change in the wild (and which are accelerated and more focused in traditional breeding), so that the difference in kind that anti-GMO crusaders try to draw between evil GMOs, on the one hand, and safe products of traditional breeding, on the other -- on the basis of the methods that produce the genetic changes in each -- is an illusory distinction.
mudil 11y ago
Nowhere in the article it says that eating foods is responsible for gene transfers from GMOs into you. The point of research is that gene jump between species. Naturally, through vectors such as viruses. So, when scientists introduce say a rapid-growth potato gene into salmon, it's not necessarily such a far fetched gene manipulation. These types of genetic jumps happen naturally all the time. Opponents of GMOs are very vocal about introduction of "foreign" genes into species. ("How can we have a rapid-growth salmon, if they escape into the environment?" is a typical argument.) But that argument looks pretty feeble if you consider the above mentioned research.
- 13years 11y ago
  I don't think you need to even consider gene transfer to be concerned about species with new traits impact on the environment. We already have plenty of lessons of introducing existing species outside of their natural environment which resulted in disaster for the local ecosystem.

mikro2nd 11y ago

Smells like teh astroturf to "shape" attitudes towards GMOs.

FilterSweep 11y ago
I had that same feeling rather early on when I reached this: > Opponents have frequently maintained that an interspecies gene transfer done in a laboratory—the insertion of a bacterial gene into corn to make it insect-resistant, for example—would never occur naturally and is therefore unethical and potentially unsafe. > The new study, published Thursday in the journal PLOS Genetics, undermines that argument. > "You realize that nature is creating genetically modified organisms all the time,” said Salvador Herrero, a geneticist at the University of Valencia, Spain, and co-author of the study. “It’s not so weird to transfer genes from one organism to another. I don't see how these results undermine the argument in any way, _whatsoever_, Mr. Naik. The only way it can undermine an anti-GMO agenda is to "equate" human genetic modifications to nature's genetic modifications. The gene vectors we create are different. Herrero's point laid out here also appears taken out of the scope of the results of the original study. Or, more accurately, Herrero's point was taken out of context by the authors of the WSJ piece.
- eivarv 11y ago
  I don't think there's much to undermine in the first place, as the opponent argument isn't much of an argument – just an appeal to nature (if I understand their position correctly). Whether the modifications are done by nature or by an agent is irrelevant in itself, as nothing is exclusively inherent to either approach. Any legitimate skepticism would be backed by critique of theory or argument, and/or contributing alternative explanations.
  - 13years 11y ago
    The argument I have heard is that this is part of the basis for the significant difference. Random mutations - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/