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Shellfish Gene: One piece of mobile DNA has spread itself throughout the oceans

54 points by drewvolpe 8y ago

Taniwha 8y ago
best subeditor ever!
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We're hoping for a bit better than that here.
mopierotti 8y ago
The title is a clever reference to Dawkins' book about evolutionary fitness: The Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)
- Odenwaelder 8y ago
  An absolute must-read if you’re interested in biology.
jfarlow 8y ago
Here's the sequence of the viral-like sequence they're calling Steamer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KF319019 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KF319019 We've got a bunch of similar viral-like DNA within our own genomes. And it appears some of those sequences might actually 'fight' each other over evolutionary time scales (dominant negative variants expressed from common viral-promoters) - to the point where their infighting actually is in some sense part of our own immune system's ability to ward off incoming viral sequences in favor of existing sequences we're playing host to. Lots more biology for us to learn!
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  As someone who likes to read about biology but only took a couple of classes in high school - isn't there a trope that we used to not understand what 90% of our DNA does and initially thought it was not used? The very simpler counterargument in my opinion was we don't understand 90% of what our DNA does.
  - jfarlow 8y ago
    There is such a trope - I wouldn't call it accurate. We're learning a lot very fast. But DNA (like most biology) is multi-modal and has roles at many different scales - from the scale of milliseconds to cellular lifetimes, to organismal lifetimes to species' lifetimes, from coding proteins, to regulating what codes proteins, to physical space, to more. There's a lot to learn, but we also know a lot. To me it seems more like a nice middle ground right now - enough to get a truly solid toehold, but also much more to go :)
mannykannot 8y ago
I did not follow why this is not considered some sort of virus - is it because it is not a template for any proteins, or if it is, they do not get synthesized, or they do but they don't assemble into a virus particle that encapsulates the genetic material?
- Odenwaelder 8y ago
  Viruses have a hull, Transposons don’t. Viruses have evolved from transposons by acquiring genes that allow them to form hulls.

54 points by drewvolpe 8y ago

Taniwha 8y ago

best subeditor ever!

dang 8y ago
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We're hoping for a bit better than that here.

mopierotti 8y ago

The title is a clever reference to Dawkins' book about evolutionary fitness: The Selfish Gene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)

Odenwaelder 8y ago
An absolute must-read if you’re interested in biology.

jfarlow 8y ago

Here's the sequence of the viral-like sequence they're calling Steamer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KF319019 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KF319019 We've got a bunch of similar viral-like DNA within our own genomes. And it appears some of those sequences might actually 'fight' each other over evolutionary time scales (dominant negative variants expressed from common viral-promoters) - to the point where their infighting actually is in some sense part of our own immune system's ability to ward off incoming viral sequences in favor of existing sequences we're playing host to. Lots more biology for us to learn!

stevenwoo 8y ago
As someone who likes to read about biology but only took a couple of classes in high school - isn't there a trope that we used to not understand what 90% of our DNA does and initially thought it was not used? The very simpler counterargument in my opinion was we don't understand 90% of what our DNA does.
- jfarlow 8y ago
  There is such a trope - I wouldn't call it accurate. We're learning a lot very fast. But DNA (like most biology) is multi-modal and has roles at many different scales - from the scale of milliseconds to cellular lifetimes, to organismal lifetimes to species' lifetimes, from coding proteins, to regulating what codes proteins, to physical space, to more. There's a lot to learn, but we also know a lot. To me it seems more like a nice middle ground right now - enough to get a truly solid toehold, but also much more to go :)

mannykannot 8y ago

I did not follow why this is not considered some sort of virus - is it because it is not a template for any proteins, or if it is, they do not get synthesized, or they do but they don't assemble into a virus particle that encapsulates the genetic material?

Odenwaelder 8y ago
Viruses have a hull, Transposons don’t. Viruses have evolved from transposons by acquiring genes that allow them to form hulls.