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科学美国人60秒:昆虫捐献DNA给没有关系的虫类

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This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
You can thank your parents for your DNA. Because humans share genes through sexual reproduction, passing DNA from parent to child. It's known as the 'vertical transfer' of DNA.
Now imagine if you could share just one or two bits of your DNA with an unrelated stranger, through a handshake, or other incidental contact—and that stranger inserted your DNA into their genome. No sex. No offspring either. That's called the 'horizontal transfer' of DNA. It's obviously not how humans do it. But it's a mainstay of single-celled organisms like bacteria, which use the process to share antibiotic resistance genes, for example.

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And now French scientists have found that horizontal DNA transfer could be a lot more common than we thought in multicellular organisms, too—insects, in this case. Because by analyzing 195 insect genomes, they found more than 2,200 cases of horizontal DNA transfer between unrelated species of flies and butterflies, beetles and wasps.
That total quadruples the number of horizontal DNA transfers previously described in all plants, animals and fungi. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
How exactly this genetic transfer happens is still a mystery. Might be viruses, or parasites, doing the DNA delivery. But whatever the cause, it suggests that the evolution of insects, on a molecular level at least, may be something more of a shared success story.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

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重点单词   查看全部解释    
species ['spi:ʃiz]

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n. (单复同)物种,种类

 
handshake ['hændʃeik]

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n. 握手

 
genome ['dʒi:nəum]

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n. [生]基因组;[生]染色体组

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mystery ['mistəri]

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n. 神秘,秘密,奥秘,神秘的人或事物

 
offspring ['ɔ:fspriŋ]

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n. 子孙,后代,产物

 
antibiotic [.æntibai'ɔtik]

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adj. 抗菌的 n. 抗生素

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incidental [.insi'dentl]

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adj. 附带的,偶然的,容易发生的

 
evolution [.i:və'lu:ʃən]

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n. 进化,发展,演变

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reproduction [.ri:prə'dʌkʃən]

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n. 再现,复制,生殖,幼树

 
vertical ['və:tikəl]

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adj. 垂直的,顶点的,纵向的
n. 垂直物

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关键字: 科学美国人 昆虫 DNA

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