Premium
The cytoplasmic structure hypothesis for ribosome assembly, vertical inheritance, and phylogeny
Author(s) -
Thaler David S.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.200800190
Subject(s) - horizontal gene transfer , ribosome , biology , genetics , gene , genome , transfer rna , translation (biology) , ribosomal rna , archaea , evolutionary biology , rna , messenger rna
Fundamental questions in evolution concern deep divisions in the living world and vertical versus horizontal information transfer. Two contrasting views are: (i) three superkingdoms Archaea, Eubacteria, and Eukarya based on vertical inheritance of genes encoding ribosomes; versus (ii) a prokaryotic/eukaryotic dichotomy with unconstrained horizontal gene transfer (HGT) among prokaryotes. Vertical inheritance implies continuity of cytoplasmic and structural information whereas HGT transfers only DNA. By hypothesis, HGT of the translation machinery is constrained by interaction between new ribosomal gene products and vertically inherited cytoplasmic structure made largely of preexisting ribosomes. Ribosomes differentially enhance the assembly of new ribosomes made from closely related genes and inhibit the assembly of products from more distal genes. This hypothesis suggests experiments for synthetic biology: the ability of synthetic genomes to “boot,” i.e ., establish hereditary continuity, will be constrained by the phylogenetic closeness of the cell “body” into which genomes are placed.