Current methods used for phylogenetic classification of prokaryotes largely rely on the sequences of 16S rRNA genes that are ubiquitously present in the cell. Theoretical basis of this methodology is based on the assumption that 16S rRNA genes are only vertically inherited and are thus indigenous to each species. However, microbial genomic analysis has revealed the existence of prokaryotic spec...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) can radically alter the genomes of microorganisms, providing the capacity to adapt to new lifestyles, environments, and hosts. However, the extent of HGT between eukaryotes is unclear. Using whole-genome, gene-by-gene phylogenetic analysis we demonstrate an extensive pattern of cross-kingdom HGT between fungi and oomycetes. Comparative genomics, including the de n...

An increasing number of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events from bacteria to animals have been reported in the past years, many of which involve Wolbachia bacterial endosymbionts and their invertebrate hosts. Most transferred Wolbachia genes are neutrally-evolving fossils embedded in host genomes. A remarkable case of Wolbachia HGT for which a clear evolutionary significance has been demonstr...

While most molecular biologists are familiar with the artificial transformation of bacteria in the context of laboratory cloning experiments, natural competence for transformation refers to a specific physiological state in which prokaryotes are able to take up genetic material from their surroundings. Occasionally, such absorbed DNA is recombined into the organism's own genome, resulting in na...

Observations are compared to conflicting predictions about self-gravitational structure formation by the hydro-gravitational theory (HGT) of Gibson 19962003 versus cold-dark-matter hierarchical-clustering-cosmology (CDMHCC) and the Jeans 1902 criterion. According to HGT, gravitational structures form immediately after mass-energy equality by plasma fragmentation at 30,000 years when viscous and...

In 2000, the thematic network ENTRANSFOOD was launched to assess four different topics that are all related to the testing or assessment of food containing or produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Each of the topics was linked to a European Commission (EC)-funded large shared cost action (see http://www.entransfood.com). Since the exchange of genetic information through horizonta...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) often has strong benefits for fungi. In a study of samples from apple canker in Shaanxi Province, China, diverse microbes, along with the necrotrophic pathogen Valsa mali, were found to colonize the apple bark, thus providing ample opportunity for HGT to occur. In the present study, we identified 32 HGT events in V. mali by combining phyletic distribution-based me...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is seen to have been a pervasive phenomenon in the early history of life, necessitating a new evolutionary model for the deep past. We find that in this early time, HGT is the dominant evolutionary mechanism, in fact completely obscuring vertical descent at the time of the universal ancestor—a time of communal evolution out of which Darwinian evolution was to emerge.

As the Human Genome Project and other genome projects experience remarkable success and a flood of biological data is produced by means of high-throughout sequencing techniques, detection of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) becomes a promising field in bioinformatics. This review describes two freeware programs: T-REX for MS Windows and RHOM for Linux. T-REX is a graphical user interface program ...

Determining the influence of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) on phylogenomic analyses and the retrieval of a tree of life is relevant for our understanding of microbial genome evolution. It is particularly difficult to differentiate between phylogenetic incongruence due to noise and that resulting from HGT. We have performed a large-scale, detailed evolutionary analysis of the different phylogen...