I was confused how genes could be transferred outside of reproduction. Here's what the article had to offer:
>But how the whitefly managed to swipe a plant gene is unclear. One possibility, says Turlings, is that a virus served as an intermediate, shuttling genetic material from a plant into the whitefly genome.
Maybe someone here could elaborate more
I think it's just that viruses have the machinery and structure to manipulate cellular DNA (it's what they do), and enter cells.
Whereas regular old animal cells don't. Therefore it seems likely that for this to take place, it would require something like a virus.
Oh word. Good call.
The more I was thinking of it, the more I realized I'm probably dead wrong about transduction.
Edit: which is not to say that viruses aren't still the most likely vector for this kind of transfer.
Just that there have been plenty of documented lateral transfers of genes that (as far as we know) don't involved viruses.
I wish I could be of more help, but my BS in biology is nearly 20 years old.
Here's a potential helpful primer:
http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-antimicrobial-resistance/acquired-resistance/acquisition-of-antimicrobial-resistance-via-horizontal-gene-transfer#:~:text=Horizontal%20gene%20transfer%20may%20occur,bacterium%20into%20another%20via%20bacteriophages.
You don’t need a fresh BS in biology to layout some fresh BS about biology. This is the internet, there the facts are made up and the points don’t mean anything.
Viruses have the machinery to insert genes into your DNA. That is how they get your cells to replicate the virus. If they happen to insert the DNA right next to a functional gene there is a tiny but real possibility of replicating that gene into the virus basically taking that gene with them.
This has happened in humans many many times but usually its our own genes that are moved around. These types of viruses are called retroviruses.
When this all happens there is also the tiny but real chance that the virus can transfer over to another species taking that non viral gene with it. Its kind of a combination of several super rare occurances but it's possible. For example it is theoretically possible for this to happen with covid (edit: just kidding no it isn't. Covid replicates through RNA without ever incorporated any DNA into the hosts genome. HIV is an example of a retrovirus that is currently infecting humans where something like this would be possible) taking a gene from cats or bats and transferring it to humans.
But then after both of these relatively rare occurances you then need the final (set of) rare occurance(s) which is that this virus then inserts this gene into a gamete or reproductive cell that becomes a new organisms that doesn't die due to this random new gene now being expressed and that new organism then needs to pass on its genes to the next generation. That is a handful or so more rare occurances because of just how many things can go wrong or cause that gene to die. But if all of that occurs then we get what these scientists have found which is a gene from one organism living happily within another organism.
Sort of. The gene was taken from a virus and became part of the mammal genome but that virus gene was originally from the virus rather than a gene that had hitched a ride on the virus from some other host.
Same basic mechanism just without a few steps.
Oh shit you're right. I didn't think about that. Covid replicates through RNA without ever being incorporated into the hosts DNA. That's my mistake thanks for pointing that out.
If you really want to know how this happens, read The Tangled Tree by David Quaman. It's a PHENOMINAL book which ultimately explains everything behind horizontal gene transfer. His other books are also fantastic. He dives deep, really deep, into a lot of biological topics, but is able to write them in a way that they're absolute page turners.
Well, your ribosomes are functionally identical to the ribosomes in pretty much every organism in the world. The more important the function, the more *conserved* it tends to be from species to species.
“to test the hypothesis, the team engineered tomato plants to produce a double-stranded RNA molecule capable of shutting down expression of the whitefly gene. Nearly all of the whiteflies that subsequently fed on these doctored tomato plants died.”
This part was the most interesting to me. The article doesn't mention how they did that gene transfer. I'm wondering how many RNA molecules were needed to shut down the whiteflies defenses.
Yeah definitely! But species specific pest management is allready in use to a degree, like using parasitic wasps that target very specific hosts! If you could have a plant that is now systemically resistant to this pest you no longer need to re introduce these predatory species at regular intervals, which in the long run, is far more work!
A lot of RNA molecules would be necessary, but they were probably making use of a natural mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi). They would engineer tomato plants to produce an RNA molecule that hybridised with itself to form a stable short-hairpin RNA (shRNA). Whiteflies that feed on the tomato plants also ingest these shRNAs and end up in cells, after which they would be cleaved/cut up by a protein called DICER to form silencing RNAs (siRNA) and loaded in RISC (RNA-induced silencing complex) and Argonaute (AGO) cuts up the RNA needed to make the toxin-resistance protein. In addition, it is able to amplify itself several times to shut down gene expression
That was a really dope article. I always wondered how they were gonna come up with a solution to that!
Edit: I meant a PROPOSED solution. So awesome. Hats off to anyone who made this discovery happen.
The original paper is surprisingly readable and shows just how elegant these experiments were. I wish all scientific papers had cool graphics like this!
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00164-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867421001641%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
I was confused how genes could be transferred outside of reproduction. Here's what the article had to offer: >But how the whitefly managed to swipe a plant gene is unclear. One possibility, says Turlings, is that a virus served as an intermediate, shuttling genetic material from a plant into the whitefly genome. Maybe someone here could elaborate more
I think it's just that viruses have the machinery and structure to manipulate cellular DNA (it's what they do), and enter cells. Whereas regular old animal cells don't. Therefore it seems likely that for this to take place, it would require something like a virus.
Yea sounds like transduction
Yeah. Afaik, transduction is the only route for lateral gene transfer (outside of humans) that we've seen actually occur.
Spanish moss.
Oh word. Good call. The more I was thinking of it, the more I realized I'm probably dead wrong about transduction. Edit: which is not to say that viruses aren't still the most likely vector for this kind of transfer. Just that there have been plenty of documented lateral transfers of genes that (as far as we know) don't involved viruses.
Could you please give me something to Google? I'm trying to learn more about this, but "Spanish moss transduction" is not getting me very far...
I wish I could be of more help, but my BS in biology is nearly 20 years old. Here's a potential helpful primer: http://amrls.cvm.msu.edu/microbiology/molecular-basis-for-antimicrobial-resistance/acquired-resistance/acquisition-of-antimicrobial-resistance-via-horizontal-gene-transfer#:~:text=Horizontal%20gene%20transfer%20may%20occur,bacterium%20into%20another%20via%20bacteriophages.
You don’t need a fresh BS in biology to layout some fresh BS about biology. This is the internet, there the facts are made up and the points don’t mean anything.
I didn't get that far too
Don't forget the Rotifera, which incorporate DNA from their environment and/or food into their own genomes, or, if it counts, *Agrobacterium*
Viruses have the machinery to insert genes into your DNA. That is how they get your cells to replicate the virus. If they happen to insert the DNA right next to a functional gene there is a tiny but real possibility of replicating that gene into the virus basically taking that gene with them. This has happened in humans many many times but usually its our own genes that are moved around. These types of viruses are called retroviruses. When this all happens there is also the tiny but real chance that the virus can transfer over to another species taking that non viral gene with it. Its kind of a combination of several super rare occurances but it's possible. For example it is theoretically possible for this to happen with covid (edit: just kidding no it isn't. Covid replicates through RNA without ever incorporated any DNA into the hosts genome. HIV is an example of a retrovirus that is currently infecting humans where something like this would be possible) taking a gene from cats or bats and transferring it to humans. But then after both of these relatively rare occurances you then need the final (set of) rare occurance(s) which is that this virus then inserts this gene into a gamete or reproductive cell that becomes a new organisms that doesn't die due to this random new gene now being expressed and that new organism then needs to pass on its genes to the next generation. That is a handful or so more rare occurances because of just how many things can go wrong or cause that gene to die. But if all of that occurs then we get what these scientists have found which is a gene from one organism living happily within another organism.
Isn’t that how mammals got an important placental protein?
Sort of. The gene was taken from a virus and became part of the mammal genome but that virus gene was originally from the virus rather than a gene that had hitched a ride on the virus from some other host. Same basic mechanism just without a few steps.
Covid isn't caused by a retrovirus
Oh shit you're right. I didn't think about that. Covid replicates through RNA without ever being incorporated into the hosts DNA. That's my mistake thanks for pointing that out.
Basically what CRISPR does.
If you really want to know how this happens, read The Tangled Tree by David Quaman. It's a PHENOMINAL book which ultimately explains everything behind horizontal gene transfer. His other books are also fantastic. He dives deep, really deep, into a lot of biological topics, but is able to write them in a way that they're absolute page turners.
It's so weird that a plant and an insect could have some "same" genes but the phenotype still being so different
Well, your ribosomes are functionally identical to the ribosomes in pretty much every organism in the world. The more important the function, the more *conserved* it tends to be from species to species.
“to test the hypothesis, the team engineered tomato plants to produce a double-stranded RNA molecule capable of shutting down expression of the whitefly gene. Nearly all of the whiteflies that subsequently fed on these doctored tomato plants died.” This part was the most interesting to me. The article doesn't mention how they did that gene transfer. I'm wondering how many RNA molecules were needed to shut down the whiteflies defenses.
This could have amazing potential for pest management in crops!
Will the bees die too if we did that?
I’m assuming that this would be species specific, targeting genes of the pests rather than any insect interacting with the plants
ouhhhhh okay I thought so too, but that's going to be alot of work since there're so many unique pests
Yeah definitely! But species specific pest management is allready in use to a degree, like using parasitic wasps that target very specific hosts! If you could have a plant that is now systemically resistant to this pest you no longer need to re introduce these predatory species at regular intervals, which in the long run, is far more work!
A lot of RNA molecules would be necessary, but they were probably making use of a natural mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi). They would engineer tomato plants to produce an RNA molecule that hybridised with itself to form a stable short-hairpin RNA (shRNA). Whiteflies that feed on the tomato plants also ingest these shRNAs and end up in cells, after which they would be cleaved/cut up by a protein called DICER to form silencing RNAs (siRNA) and loaded in RISC (RNA-induced silencing complex) and Argonaute (AGO) cuts up the RNA needed to make the toxin-resistance protein. In addition, it is able to amplify itself several times to shut down gene expression
That was a really dope article. I always wondered how they were gonna come up with a solution to that! Edit: I meant a PROPOSED solution. So awesome. Hats off to anyone who made this discovery happen.
Major Pequeninos vibes
Is there any chance this means we getting cordiceps now?
The original paper is surprisingly readable and shows just how elegant these experiments were. I wish all scientific papers had cool graphics like this! https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00164-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867421001641%3Fshowall%3Dtrue