For the past 80 million year , a bantam urine - stand organism telephone the bdelloid rotifer has experience and thrived without the benefit of intimate reproduction . Now , while asexual replica is nothing fresh to scientific discipline , the direction that these rotifer go about it is particularly unique : They deplete desoxyribonucleic acid found in organic debris . The find shows that sex may not be as important to reproduction as antecedently assumed . Gasp !
In this international study , a enquiry squad lead by Chiara Boschetti and Alan Tunnacliffe of Cambridge University conducted the first large scale depth psychology of the mysterious rotifer . What they learned was that the all - distaff microinvertebrates get about 10 % of their active genes by ingesting bacterium , fungi , protists , algae , and other organisms that are establish in their aquatic environments . Once they ’ve eaten this alien DNA , they then ‘ transliterate ’ the genetic info in a way that scientist do n’t quite understand — a process that ’s being call ‘ horizontal gene transfer ’ ( HGT ) .
But what the investigator do know is that , of this genetic material , about 80 % codes for enzyme ( which makes a considerable contribution to the bdelloid biochemistry ) , and that 39 % of enzyme bodily process has a foreign contribution . In 23 % of lawsuit the bodily function is uniquely driven by a foreign gene .
And what ’s just as enthralling is how the HGT process allows the bdelloid to continually evolve and accommodate to changing condition over sentence . One of the primary welfare of intimate reproduction is that it leads to subtle mutations that allow a mintage to change and accommodate to new environments . With HGT , variations are still happening — but as the solution of integrating new DNA from other species .
And indeed , the investigator have cataloged over 400 different species of this rotifer , many of which have developed remarkable adjustment . For example , one varient has developed a allowance for high horizontal surface of ionizing radiotherapy that kills other creature , and others can withstand uttermost desiccation . As a result , the researcher have conclude that horizontal gene carry-over is a workable mechanism for selection without sex — one that works by broaden electrical capacity and even replace bad gene with strange opposite number .
The entirestudycan be found at PLOS .
Image : Marine Biological Laboratory .
BiologyScience
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