Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Mar 7;6(2):e1154636.
doi: 10.1080/2159256X.2016.1154636. eCollection 2016 Mar-Apr.

Horizontal transfer - imperative mission of acellular life forms, Acytota

Eduard Kejnovsky  1 , Edward N Trifonov  2
Affiliations
Review

Horizontal transfer - imperative mission of acellular life forms, Acytota

Eduard Kejnovsky et al. Mob Genet Elements. .

Abstract

Acytota is a kingdom of life covering satellites, plasmids, transposable elements, viroids and viruses, all outside the conventional tree of life but satisfying most life definitions. This review focuses on some aspects of Acytota, their "genomes" and life styles, the dominance of transposable elements and their evolutionary influence on other life forms in order to vindicate the Acytota as a life kingdom no more polyphyletic than other kingdoms and its members no more parasitic than other life forms.

Keywords: DNA and RNA traffic; definition of life; horizontal gene transfer; origin of life; satellite DNA; transposable element; virus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
DNA (red) and RNA (blue) traffic inside cell and between cells during processes of endosymbiotic gene transfer (green background), retrotransposition of LTR retrotransposons and retroviruses (violet background), extrachromosomal amplification of satellite DNA and rDNA (blue background), silencing of TE by RNA interference (yellow background), transfer of plasmid DNA, infection of cell by viroid RNA and transformation of cell by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. All processes can take place in one cell, 2 cells are shown here to better visualize migration of nucleic acids between cells.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Angly FE, Felts B, Breitbart M, Salamon P, Edwards RA, Carlson C, Chan AM, Haynes M, Kelley S, Liu H, et al.. The marine viromes of four oceanic regions. PLoS Biol 2006; 4:2121–31; PMID:17090214; http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040368 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bremnes RM, Sirera R, Camps C. Circulating tumour-derived DNA and RNA markers in blood: a tool for early detection, diagnostics, and follow-up? Lung Cancer 2005; 49:1–12; PMID:15949585; doi: 10.1016/j.lungcan.2004.12.008 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Brookfield JFY. The ecology of the genome – mobile DNA elements and their hosts. Nature Rev Genet 2005; 6:128–36; PMID:15640810; doi: 10.1038/nrg1524 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Brussow H. The not so universal tree of life or the place of viruses in the living world. Phil Trans R Soc B 2009; 364:2263–74; PMID:19571246; http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1098/rstb.2009.0036 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cohen S, Segal D. Extrachromosomal circular DNA in eukaryotes: possible involvement in the plasticity of tandem repeats. Cytogenet Genome Res 2009; 124:327–38; PMID:19556784; http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1159/000218136 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources