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Ancient microbes offer clues to how complex life evolved

An amoebidium is a single celled microbe found in water. They found DNA from giant viruses in the DNA of the amoebidium. The DNA from the viruses appeared to be methylated(a molecular modification that can silence genes and prevent them from being expressed). They found that different amoebidium types have different virus DNA indicating a possibility that viruses played a large role in influencing the evolution of other cells....

Keywords:: retrovirus, DNA, virus

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Science and Technology / Biology / Cell and Molecular Biology

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Material Type:: Open (Access) Journal-Article
Date Added to MERLOT:: July 16, 2024
Date Modified in MERLOT:: July 17, 2024
Author:: Queen Mary University of London
Submitter:: George Churchill
Primary Audience:: High School, College General Ed
Technical Format:: Website

Mobile Compatibility:: Not specified at this time
Language:: English
Cost Involved:: Unknown
Source Code Available:: Unknown
Creative Commons:: Unknown

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Comments

M Zhou (Student)

1 year ago

This article goes over a study by Dr. Alex de Mendoza Soler and his team researching the Amoebidium's DNA. It is very interesting how there are many potentially harmful viruses found in its DNA, but they are all kept dormant by being chemically silenced. It gives insight on how viruses could give us insight on even the evolution of humans. Endogenous retroviruses within the Amoebidium and our own DNA could lead to some breakthroughs of our evolutionary past