Bitch shape attack
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One of the theories how organisms switched from RNA to DNA is due to viruses. Viruses have a pretty wild range of their genetic diversity. Single strand DNA, double strand DNA, positive sense single strand RNA, negative sense single strand RNA, double strand RNA. We’ve also probably got viruses as a permanent part of our genome from some ancestor species.
I think they’re pretty cool. Also, they do respond to outside stimuli, otherwise they’d be completely inert.
We’ve also probably got viruses as a permanent part of our genome from some ancestor species.
We definitely have viruses as a permanent part of our genome. A type of herpes virus is present in the DNA of all living things descended from bony fishes
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“Go back to where you were born, go back to nothing, homunculus”
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Pretty sure those "horrible little scalawags" play some pretty crucial roles in the human microbiome...
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Also, they do respond to outside stimuli, otherwise they’d be completely inert.
Do they actually respond? Or is it the external stimuli responding to them?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]They respond because they have to do things like inject the genetic material into the organism once it latches on to whatever on the cell surface. That doesn’t occur in the host, it occurs in the virus.
It’s been a while since I took virology, but I feel pretty confident that something occurs in the virus due to an external stimulus.
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Viruses are nanomachines.
Change my mind.
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Viruses are nanomachines.
Change my mind.
Frankly, all life and life-adjacent things on this planet are either nanomachines or scalable nanomachines.
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Pretty sure those "horrible little scalawags" play some pretty crucial roles in the human microbiome...
In the same way that the mafia plays a crucial role in the Italian
mafiagovernment. They’re still a bunch of dicks, even if they’re working for us. Move ‘em 2 millimeters in the wrong direction and you’ll have a bad time -
We’ve also probably got viruses as a permanent part of our genome from some ancestor species.
We definitely have viruses as a permanent part of our genome. A type of herpes virus is present in the DNA of all living things descended from bony fishes
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Mammals wouldn't have a chorioallantoic placenta at all if not for a virus integrated into our genome. Mapping when in evolution the genes responsible for placental development first appeared was my first participation in scientific research, so I love this topic.
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Mammals wouldn't have a chorioallantoic placenta at all if not for a virus integrated into our genome. Mapping when in evolution the genes responsible for placental development first appeared was my first participation in scientific research, so I love this topic.
I vaguely remember something about organelles inside a cell used to be seperate entities too
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Mammals wouldn't have a chorioallantoic placenta at all if not for a virus integrated into our genome. Mapping when in evolution the genes responsible for placental development first appeared was my first participation in scientific research, so I love this topic.
explain please
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Frankly, all life and life-adjacent things on this planet are either nanomachines or scalable nanomachines.
One might call those scaled up nanomachines "machines".
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I vaguely remember something about organelles inside a cell used to be seperate entities too
Mitochondria, for sure. They even still have their own DNA separate from your actual human DNA.
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I will forever choose to die on the hill that tumblr humor is not funny
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One might call those scaled up nanomachines "machines".
Never heard of it. Did you mean to say gigananomachines?
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In the same way that the mafia plays a crucial role in the Italian
mafiagovernment. They’re still a bunch of dicks, even if they’re working for us. Move ‘em 2 millimeters in the wrong direction and you’ll have a bad timeMove ‘em 2 millimeters in the wrong direction and you’ll have a bad time
Are you referring to getting, I dunno, yogurt in places outside the digestive tract?
My understanding was that gut bacteria play a pretty crucial (beneficial) role in overall health, not to mention the whole gut-brain stuff.
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I will forever choose to die on the hill that tumblr humor is not funny
then die
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Move ‘em 2 millimeters in the wrong direction and you’ll have a bad time
Are you referring to getting, I dunno, yogurt in places outside the digestive tract?
My understanding was that gut bacteria play a pretty crucial (beneficial) role in overall health, not to mention the whole gut-brain stuff.
Take some of those same bacteria and set them directly against the intestinal lining without any of the delicious mucus in the way and you’ll have a slightly unpleasant time. And I’m being literal. It’ll be aggravating, and deleterious to your long term health, but usually not immediately life threatening. They’re absolutely beneficial, but they’re in it for themselves. They’re not beneficent, they just are, which was all the point I intended to make.
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explain please
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Happily! Basically, the true placenta we mammals (Eutheria) have is what allows such a long gestation period. Unlike our closely related marsupials, that quickly deplete their resources and must give birth, our placenta allows for a continuous exchange of nutrients. This involves a quite complicated process of embryonic tissue invading the uterine wall, so you can imagine the kind of immunological regulation that must be taking place for that to work.
So you'd assume we have several genes highly specific to our placenta that appear when we Eutherians first appeared... right? No! Turns out the vast majority already existed in jawed vertebrates (our common ancestor with sharks), then quite a lot show up in bony fish (our common ancestor with most things you call fish), and just one shows up in Tetrapoda (our common ancestor with amphibians).
So most of the framework for developing an organ such as the placenta already existed for millions of years, so what exactly was missing before it could finally show up in evolutionary history? The two genes that are absolutely required for this whole crazy "let's invade the mother's uterine wall tissue but NOT trigger her immune system" part: CSF2 and a group of closely related genes called syncitins.
Syncitins are the star here, because they're actually a gene that came from ancient retroviruses. In the virus, they were expressed in the envelope and controlled the fusion between the viral particle and the host cell. These viruses got integrated into our genome, and this "fusion with the host cell" mechanism became extremely useful and crucial for the placenta, basically allowing it to exist.
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Happily! Basically, the true placenta we mammals (Eutheria) have is what allows such a long gestation period. Unlike our closely related marsupials, that quickly deplete their resources and must give birth, our placenta allows for a continuous exchange of nutrients. This involves a quite complicated process of embryonic tissue invading the uterine wall, so you can imagine the kind of immunological regulation that must be taking place for that to work.
So you'd assume we have several genes highly specific to our placenta that appear when we Eutherians first appeared... right? No! Turns out the vast majority already existed in jawed vertebrates (our common ancestor with sharks), then quite a lot show up in bony fish (our common ancestor with most things you call fish), and just one shows up in Tetrapoda (our common ancestor with amphibians).
So most of the framework for developing an organ such as the placenta already existed for millions of years, so what exactly was missing before it could finally show up in evolutionary history? The two genes that are absolutely required for this whole crazy "let's invade the mother's uterine wall tissue but NOT trigger her immune system" part: CSF2 and a group of closely related genes called syncitins.
Syncitins are the star here, because they're actually a gene that came from ancient retroviruses. In the virus, they were expressed in the envelope and controlled the fusion between the viral particle and the host cell. These viruses got integrated into our genome, and this "fusion with the host cell" mechanism became extremely useful and crucial for the placenta, basically allowing it to exist.
So, in other words, viruses did parts of the work of evolution by inventing the CSF2 and syncitin genes?
And that regulates the immune system to not respond to foreign tissue?
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I vaguely remember something about organelles inside a cell used to be seperate entities too
Yeah but they didn't use to be viruses, they used to be bacteria.
And they didn't integrate into human genome. They're just another foreign body that lives inside human cells, but they have their own genome still.
