Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the sharing of genetic material between organisms that are
not in a parent–offspring relationship. HGT is a widely recognized mechanism for adaptation …

Highlights•Endosymbiotic theory explains why organelles resemble free-living
bacteria.•Gene trees are well-suited to testing endosymbiotic theory, but not to replacing …

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the movement of genetic material across branches of the
tree of life, is well established in prokaryotes and uncontroversial. This is explained in part …

Marine diatoms rose to prominence about 100 million years ago and today generate most of
the organic matter that serves as food for life in the sea. They exist in a dilute world where …

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT; also known as lateral gene transfer) has had an important
role in eukaryotic genome evolution, but its importance is often overshadowed by the greater …

Plastids (chloroplasts) have long been recognized to have originated by endosymbiosis of a
cyanobacterium, but their subsequent evolutionary history has proved complex because …

The primary endosymbiotic origin of the plastid in eukaryotes more than 1 billion years ago
led to the evolution of algae and plants. We analyzed draft genome and transcriptome data …

Background Land plants (embryophytes) evolved from streptophyte green algae, a small
group of freshwater algae ranging from scaly, unicellular flagellates (Mesostigma) to …

Lateral gene transfer is an important mechanism of natural variation among prokaryotes, but
the significance of its quantitative contribution to genome evolution is debated. Here, we …

Solid semi-crystalline starch and hydrosoluble glycogen define two distinct physical states of
the same type of storage polysaccharide. Appearance of semi-crystalline storage …