Comments on: Space Invader DNA jumped across mammalian genomes

By: Alex Hall

Alex Hall — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 02:41:02 +0000

Thanks for the accurate and concise summary

A minor thing – this was research conducted at the University of Texas at Arlington. The ‘University of Texas’ generally refers to the University of Texas at Austin.

By: MattK

MattK — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:57:11 +0000

Ha ha.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:42:49 +0000

I wonder if this is the same Stan who got chucked into Pharyngula’s dungeon. Regardless, this is as good a time as any to mention my new policy on commenters. I only very rarely delete/censor comments. However, if you post something really stupid here, I will take that as implicit agreement that you are unconcerned about how you appear in public and are therefore happy for me to make you look even stupider. Click on Stan’s name to see what I mean.

By: Christie

Christie — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:09:04 +0000

and, PS: “it’s just another example of adaptation that doesn’t involve natural selection being the cause”
Not all changes in genome are from natural selection. Changes in allele frequencies, for example, can be due to chance – like if an avalanche were to suddenly wipe out every blonde-haired person in Switzerland. Suddenly everyone born there would have dark hair – but not by natural selection (which requires that the gene somehow relates to an individual’s fitness). Natural selection isn’t the only process of evolution…

By: Christie

Christie — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:02:50 +0000

“Miraculous space-invader jumping genes miraculous fling themselves across time and space.” Hm… stan ignored the rules grammar as well as the whole bit about a possible mechanism via poxviruses.

By: MattK

MattK — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:38:20 +0000

stan,

it's just another example of adaptation that doesn't involve natural selection

SPINs are not adaptations.

Anyone ever notice that RMNS is NEVER validated anywhere?

No, I never noticed that. Maybe you should talk to Richard Lenski about that.

sounds like they're desperately trying to avoid special creation to me

How does this support special creation at all? These sequences, with one exception, are not adaptive so there is no evidence of design here. If anything, the existence of non-adaptive (to the host organism) sequences are a powerful argument against special creation/intelligent design. The exception is a supposedly functional gene in Murines that is derived from a SPIN. If this sequence was specially created why would it be derived from a SPIN sequence rather than constructed de novo? Honestly, you creationist trolls. Sheesh.

By: stan

stan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:02:29 +0000

sounds like they’re desperately trying to avoid special creation to me. “Miraculous space-invader jumping genes miraculous fling themselves across time and space.” Uh-huh. Even if that is true, it’s just another example of adaptation that doesn’t involve natural selection being the cause. Anyone ever notice that RMNS is NEVER validated anywhere?

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:35:33 +0000

I love it when scientists comment on posts based on their own work. I love it even more when said scientists make an amusing pun based on their own work
Welcome Cedric and thanks for the update. Great stuff you’re working on.

By: Cedric

Cedric — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:19:08 +0000

Many thanks Ed for this nice post. Very accurate.
Sven’s right; to us too the biogeography of SPIN invasion is one of the most fascinating and intriguing aspects of the story. The presence of SPIN in opossum and Anole, both currently endemic to South/Central America and presumably already so at the time of the transfers (15-40 Mya), while the other species are either strictly restricted to Africa (tenrec, bushbaby) or have a broader geographic distribution (vesper bats, murine rodents) suggest that there was intercontinental and interoceanic movement of SPIN transposons, possibly via intermediate vector(s) such as bugs and/or viruses. Interestingly, phylogenetic analyses (not shown in the paper) are consistent with the geographic distribution, with the SPIN consensus sequences of the opossum and Anole (slightly) more closely related to each other than to the other species.
But it’s important to keep in mind that we have looked so far at a very small sample of species, biased for the genome sequences that were available in the databases at the time of the study. We are currently investigating further this and other related questions with an experimental and more systematic approach. Stay tuned for more SPINs on the story!

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:32:26 +0000

Does this have any bearing on the utility of genetic modification? Sorry if this is a stupid question, it sounds as if it is a similar process, though happening in a very different way.