Sex Life of Killer Fungus Finally Revealed

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 6 days (www.sciencedaily.com)

Biologists at The University of Nottingham and University College Dublin have announced a major breakthrough in our understanding of the sex life of a microscopic fungus which is a major cause of death in immune deficient patients and also a cause of severe asthma.

The discovery of a sexual cycle in the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus is highly significant in understanding the biology and evolution of the species and will shed new light on its ability to adapt to new environments and its resistance to antifungal drugs

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The Case of the Half-Blood Bug

davidd submitted, created time 8 months 4 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

The ubiquitous microbes have such a messy family tree--with various types of sexual reproduction and genes jumping between distantly related bacteria--that the very concept of a microbial species is in doubt. Now, a genetic study of the microbes predicts that some bacteria will "despeciate."

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Bacterial Solutions to the Problem of Sex

june submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (biology.plosjournals.org)

“Why sex?” is a question that has occupied the minds of evolutionary biologists for more than a century. The evolution of organisms that mix their genes during reproduction is considered one of the major transitions in evolution [1], because it fundamentally changed how genes are transmitted to the next generation. In asexual reproduction, offspring inherit a more or less unaltered genome from the parent. In sexual reproduction, genetic material is first reduced in the gametes (sperm or ovaries) and then fused with that of another individual, before new offspring may develop

2 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: sex and reproduction related genes sexual reproduction sex-linked genes bacterial sex sex-linked genes bacterial evolution

Coevolution of robustness, epistasis, and recombination favors asexual reproduction

bianjie submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.pnas.org)

The prevalence of sexual reproduction remains one of the most perplexing phenomena in evolutionary biology. The deterministic mutation hypothesis postulates that sexual reproduction will be advantageous under synergistic epistasis, a condition in which mutations cause a greater reduction in fitness when combined than would be expected from their individual effects.

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