The researchers determine the rate of basic evolutionary process in the ocean

The movement of genetic substances among the living organisms is directly an important driver for development, especially among the one -cell organisms such as bacteria and archaeological. A team led by researchers at the Bijelow Laboratory for Oceanic Sciences now estimated that the medium cell line acquires and maintains about 13 % of its genes every million years through the transfer of this side genes. That is, the equivalent of about 250 genes that have been replaced per liter of sea water every day.

The new study, which was recently published in ISME magazineProvides the first quantitative analysis of genetic transmission rates across the entire microbium. It doubts the skepticism of the strict classification lines drawn between individual species. It also confirms that many transmitted genes have direct environmental benefits, with highlighting how this process enables microbes to adapt to new environments and provide them with valuable capabilities, such as the ability to reach basic nutrients.

“All the operations that microbes drive on our planet have evolved, and this development, to a large extent, is driven by the transfer of side genes, but the process is very difficult to study, and no one has been able to put numbers in this process,” said Ramonas Steanoskas, the lead author of the study. “We generally know how it works, but we had no idea if you were taking a drop of sea water, is genes exchanging once in one minute, once a year or once? That was completely unknown – so far.”

Genetics can be transferred sideways through multiple mechanisms, including absorbing floating genetic materials into the environment, direct transmission between cells, and foreign DNA injection into a virus host.

Scientists have struggled to measure these operations, though, given the tremendous diversity of microbial life. Traditional “evolutionary development tree” methods can be used to study the transfer of large -scale specific genes – one -time bone – but it is inaccurate to study a full ecosystem. Likewise, the common way to study microbial genomics and metaginom science works by sewing groups of “typical” relevant genes, which means that they exclude the activity of rare transmitted genes or come from non -relevant living organisms.

Nevertheless, progress in mathematical modeling and one cell genome allowed scientists to start answering these questions.

The genome team used 12,000 microbial cells, samples were randomly taken from the tropical and semi -tropical surfaces that are sequenced by the Stepanauskas team at the one cell genom center (SCGC). The unique data collection is one of the largest microbial genotations that have ever produced. They compared the distribution of joint genes in these real data with a computer model that assumed that genes can only be vertically transferred between parents and atomicism, not sideways.

“This project was an exciting opportunity to think differently on how to measure a basic evolutionary process and dodging the microbial component of ecosystems worldwide,” said Sayfash Mararab, a professor at the University of California in San Diego and a co -author of the study that led her team to develop the model.

The approach confirmed that most genes are exchanged between closely related cells, but not all. Some genes with a clear environmental value can be transmitted successfully between microbes, which are bound to be distant to each other, such as humans to kangaroo. For example, they found evidence of new genes that enable them to absorb new sources of phosphorous in the Sargaso Sea Limited Phosphor.

The results also show evidence of the exchanging genes that encrypt the ribbasic DNA, the cellular mechanism responsible for the synthesis of protein. Stepanauskas said, “It was surprising that these genes were often used as biological diversity standards because scientists assumed that they did not participate in side transportation,” said Stepanauskas.

In the future, the team hopes to expand this approach in new environments and dismantle the differences between genealogy, transportation mechanisms and ecosystems. This work can have significant effects on biotechnology by detecting how to effectively and quickly engineered cells for different environments and processes. To this end, SCGC is constantly improving and expanding its analytical capabilities to enable the extensive -scale studies required by work.

“The answer to these questions has become possible, but only if we can continue to improve our modeling sets,” said Mararab.

Stepanauskas added: “I see this just a beginning,” added Stepanauskas. “We finally have sufficient data to start making this type of quantitative analysis, but we still need to proceed to say how much the specified species of microbes are frequent, what are the operations involved, and how we can use this knowledge in environmental supervision and the vital economy.”