Slashdot Mirror
Photosynthesizing Sea Slugs Steal Genes From Algae
An anonymous reader writes For decades, scientists have puzzled over how a certain sea slug acquires the ability to photosynthesize after ingesting algae. An advanced imaging technique now confirms that the slugs are literally stealing genes from the algae. It's considered the first example of horizontal gene transfer in a multicellular organism.
Holy crap, they're GMO! I demand they be labeled as such right now!
... it's copyright infringement.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
But I know many multicellular intelligent organisms that have engaged in horizontal gene transfer. Many of them probably shouldn't have.
Silence is a state of mime.
This has been known for years. I even remember watching a nature doco back in the 90s which went into detail about the creatures.
Note: all WH40K cosplayers better suit up...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Sounds like some sort of euphemism...
They're Democrats!
Nope! Paparalge
So this is how they got the ability to produce Adam.
I may be too optimistic but this could become a really nice laboratory tool once the exact mechanism of genetic transfer is known and replicated, gene cloning independent from plasmid or simplified transfection would be very useful for genetic engineering. Imagine easily cultured cells that not only can accept various genetic materials but actively incorporate them into their genome, "gene cloning for dummies" kits for one-step protein expression.
> It's considered the first example of horizontal gene transfer in a multicellular organism.
Now that we know horizontal gene transfer happens in nature, that should lay to rest any arguments that GMOs are unsafe, after all it is exactly the same thing just man-made in a lab where it can be tested.
Because transferring food-making genes into an inedible organism is just the same as transferring poison-making genes into your food.
How does that make sense? So if they ate a pig they would turn into a pig-slug? Likely not, I am assuming, then why not just be born with the photosynthesis genes instead of the exact gene needed to copy them and only them from plants? I have heard of similar animals who ingested plankton, and then held the plankton in special translucent "stomachs" that leched the energy out as it was being photosynthesized. Sounds far easier than this method.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'm a 58 year old programmer, my mother will love to have you over for dinner. She's 28 years older than me. When can she expect you for "that special date"?
I forgot to ask you, do you prefer her teeth in or out? And do you prefer privacy? 'cause she shares a room with a former nun at the nursing home.
The slugs at some point in their past acquired the genes from algae that are required to maintain/repair the chloroplasts that each one collects from the algae they eat. The horizontal gene transfer is (presumably) not an ongoing process but something that happened in their distant past.
The baby slugs start eating algae and they digest most of them but they save the chloroplasts from the algae cells and integrate them into their own tissue. Once they accumulate enough of them they basically become solar powered and don't need to eat anymore.
Normally the chloroplasts would not survive very long without an algae around them to take care of them, but this is where the genes that the slug has that originally came from the algae come into play. The slug is thus able to provide the things that its adopted chloroplasts need to survive for many months.
Definitely very cool.
G.
Yes, we should trust Monsanto when they say it's safe, just like we trusted the tobacco companies when they debunked the "smoking causes cancer" myths. Oh wait...
Why can't Monsanto open source everything? So we can get many eyes to make the bugs shallow?
You gotta ask yourself the hard questions, boy. How did these slugs acquire this advanced genetic engineering capability in the first place? Were some of them working for Monstanto? Did they have unauthorized access to Monstanto's advanced project results? Have they shared it with someone else, who could be our enema? Did those slugs secretly tap into that knowledge to enhance their bodies? Did they properly license the technology? Are they paying Monsanto what they owe? If they did and they don't, what does our great country do about it.
And, most importantly, how are YOU going to do your part to help.
If the reporter thinks it's the first example of horizontal gene transfer then they should go and study molecular biology. It's not even the first example of an animal stealing genes from another kingdom! The bacteria-originated genes were even found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - a model organism in biology.
Erm... Monsanto GM modifications are open source. The sequence of nucleotides and the method of their insertion is clearly described in these patents: https://www.google.com/patents... , https://www.google.com/patents... and other related patents. Feel free to use them, they are expired as of the last year.
touche: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Table-ized A.I.
A creationist could argue that (apparent) gene transfer means evolution provides no consistent predictions. If things change suddenly or traits hop between category branches, then evolutionists can simply claim "gene transfer". If they change gradually, then they claim traditional natural selection.
Of course there is more to the net evidence, but the prediction-ability argument is weakened by gene hopping since it can be invoked to "explain away" a wide range of different observations.
A natural world that provides a wide variety of characteristic transfer options becomes less distinguishable from engineered changes. No camera was there to actually catch the gene hops or mutations in the act. We can only verify that they moved or changed after the fact. Nature is surprisingly flexible.
Table-ized A.I.
thats not open source. thats public domain.
The Bt gene is a 'poison making gene' in the same sense that grapes are poison berries; just because a thing harms one organism (in the case of Bt, lepidopterans and coleopterans and in the case of grapes dogs) does not mean it hurts you. The Bt toxin is very well understood; to imply it is dangerous to humans is simply dishonest.
My mother was killed by a photosynthesizing slug, you insensitive clod!
So one is saying trust Monsanto (or Syngenta or Pioneer or any of the other seed companies that always get neglected for some reason). I am, however, saying the evidence is overwhelming that genetically engineered crops are safe and effective (and yes, contrary to the conspiracy theories claiming that Monsanto somehow owns the concept of genetic engineering, this includes research that has nothing to do with corporations) and that genetic engineering has been thoroughly demonstrated to be a useful tool for crop improvement. Those are two totally different statements; don't pretend otherwise.
Why can't Monsanto open source everything?
Why can't they work for free you mean? I can think of a few reasons.
You know, if you really want more GE crops that are free to use besides the ones going off patent, and I for one sure do, then you should demand that the scientifically unjustified over-regulation of GE crops be reworked to facilitate more publicly funded GE crops. Thus far, only one university developed GE crop has been released: the Rainbow papaya, developed by the University of Hawai'i. There is also Bt eggplant in Bangladesh which is non-corporate. There's plenty of research, but no ability to bring it to the market anymore thanks to over regulation. There's something very wrong when university research cannot be used and only corporations can overcome the regulatory hurdles.
If eating McShit food and pizzas all day.
Mod parent and grandparent the fuck down.
If only we could make that work for humans.
Mod parent, grandparent and grandgrandparent horizontally.
Primal Zerg!!!!
So what you want is for someone else to do all the work then hand it over to you? Stop being a leech and do your own research.
This shit costs money.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Golden rice is open source and developed in response to a specific humanitarian need, but the lack of any association with Monsanto hasn't stopped the flat-earty lobby from ripping up fields of it out of pure spite.
I was taught this in my college Marine Biology classes in the late 1980s.
How has it taken this long for it to be discovered again? Were the 1990s the dark ages?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Golden rice solves just the wrong problem. Yes, there are people who don't get enough Vitamine A, but to solve it by increasing the price of the only food they can afford does not exactly solve this problem. There are cheaper rice crops with higher yield than Golden rice.
The Bt gene is a 'poison making gene' in the same sense that grapes are poison berries; just because a thing harms one organism (in the case of Bt, lepidopterans and coleopterans and in the case of grapes dogs) does not mean it hurts you. The Bt toxin is very well understood; to imply it is dangerous to humans is simply dishonest.
Is the Bt gene dangerous to honeybees? Keep in mind they pollinate in order of about 60% of what we eat ...
Only one question remains: Which one first, Cyclone Trap or Insect Swarm?
but to solve it by increasing the price of the only food they can afford does not exactly solve this problem
That's not at all the point of Golden Rice. It is supposed to act as a way to improve the nutritional quality of rice for those who cannot afford anything else, not be a luxury food.
There are cheaper rice crops with higher yield than Golden rice.
Golden Rice doesn't have a set yield. The idea is to breed it into locally adapted varieties so that they retain virtually all of the same genes, but produce the extra nutrition.
Food companies used to use formaldehyde as a preservative. Wasn't it obviously safe and effective, as the research of the day proved? Can you think of any other examples where the research overwhelmingly said something was safe and effective, but it wasn't?
Are you an anti-vaxer? Doesn't the research overwhelmingly show that vaccines are safe and effective? Why doesn't everyone accept that research?
Do you think that the research shows overwhelmingly that global climate change is human-caused? How many disagree, and fight tooth and nail against the conclusions of that research?
"Why can't they work for free you mean? I can think of a few reasons."
Does Red Hat work for free? Do Google Chrome developers?
If the research is so overwhelming, why is Monsanto afraid to label foods GMO? If they can prove that their modifications are safe, why not let me know on the label?
Once again: didn't the research show that tobacco didn't cause cancer at one time? Didn't tobacco companies fight against warning labels? How is the situation with Monsanto now not eerily similar?
Oxygen is toxic, water is toxic, nitrogen is toxic. Please define the safe allowance of such poison and how much is actually ingested.
It makes me wonder if lateral (horizontal) gene transfer across species is/was much more common than we currently think it is.
For these current findings, photosynthesis is a fairly easy phenotype to observe (it doesn't require a lot of advanced tools to know it is there). So to show that it occurred, someone would likely do a search across both genomes. If they find a match, then their hypothesis has a positive test. Fortunately they did get a match with enough statistical confidence to show that the genes' matched, but I bet it wasn't an exact match and it was probably aided from other known sequence-to-gene mappings. The problem applying this more generally is that over, many, many generations mutation can make the outcome of a gene match less confident, and thus hard to find.
Say someone tries to do a search for possible lateral (horizontal) bacterial genes in the human genome, for bacteria genes that evolved after we forked away from our "common ancestor." What would be the likelihood that they would find a match? --it would, however, require that we have sequenced these ancestral genomes that may not exist anymore, or are very hard to physical locate. I somewhat doubt we have this data, as the required quantity we would need would be too vast.
For example, our current state is that, cell to cell (not body mass to collective mass), we are made up of more bacteria than human. And, each human has a very unique set of bacterial species in them (more unique than a fingerprint). That is way too many species to have know the genomes and topological relationships with all humans.
So, say we do have genes from bacterial genes seeping into our gene pool. (1) They would be very difficult to gene match to know for sure, and (2) maybe this explains why people react differently to medications? Or why have a wide range of different disease predictors/risks.
To solve this problem by adding Vitamine A to the rice is misguided. The diet is still unbalanced, and just adding more and more nutritients to rice will just make the crop yield less in general, being thus more expensive, and people will still be poor and not able to afford anything but rice - and in general more of the old fashioned white rice as this one will still be cheaper.
It would make more sense to empower those people to earn more money to pay for a much more balanced food.
How exactly are they "increasing the price of the only food they can afford" by literally giving Golden Rice away for free?
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
It's a lot easier to empower people to earn more money when a large portion of their kids aren't going blind and dying. Just because Golden Rice isn't a magic bullet that solves all of this population's problems doesn't mean that it doesn't help.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.