Horizontal transfer (HT), defined as the transfer of genetic material between species, is considered to be an essential step in the ‘life cycle’ of transposable elements. We present a broad overview ...

Horizontal Gene Transfer (or HGT) is the process of an organism acquiring another organism’s DNA, usually through absorbing the ‘target’ organism, resulting in an endosymbiotic relationship. This ...

Many cyanobacterial mats are formed by the cosmopolitan filamentous non-heterocystous cyanobacterium Microcoleus chthonoplastes (Stal, 2000). This species is easily recognizable by its occurrence in ...

Is our human view of life and lineage profoundly wrong? Darwin's tree of life, by which many of us see our ancestry - with genes and traits passed vertically, root to branch, from parent to child and ...

Escherichia coli O104 is an emergent disease-causing bacterium various strains of which are becoming increasingly well known and troublesome. The pathogen causes bloody diarrhea as well as and ...

Both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms have developed genetic mechanisms by which they can evolve to adapt to and meet the challenges thrown at them by a changing environment. One process by which ...

DNA passed to and from all kinds of organisms, even across kingdoms, has helped shape the tree of life, to a large and undisputed degree in microbes and also unexpectedly in multicellular fungi, ...

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a microbial community phenomenon that essentially equates to teaching neighbors how to complete necessary tasks by ripping out and sharing ...

Reproduction is typically how humans share genetic information. This genetic transfer is referred to as vertical or passing traits “down,” so to speak. However, some organisms share genes through ...

Millions of years before scientists created genetically modified Atlantic salmon with genes from two other fish, nature created genetically modified smelt with a gene from herring, growing evidence ...

In a new study published in Cell, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL Heidelberg reveal that microbes living in similar habitats are more alike than those simply inhabiting the same geographical ...