Genes can leap from snakes to frogs in Madagascar | Hacker News Reader

Genes can leap from snakes to frogs in Madagascar

quantamagazine.org

72 pointsnsoonhui18 comments

Horizontal gene transfer is generally the transfer of functional genes between unrelated organisms, so it's a bit mis-leading to call the transfer of BovB horizontal gene transfer. BovB is a transposon, in essence a small piece of semi-autonomous DNA that jumps between DNA strands as a virus may transfer between cells. It isn't a "snake" gene.

The article mentions that BovB possibly transferred between species using viruses as vectors. The article below [0] mentions that BovB is one of the most abundant transposons in mammals.

[0] Horizontal transfer of BovB and L1 retrotransposons in eukaryotes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29983116/

Horizontal gene transfer is also a potentially neglected danger with genetic engineering. If you introduce a gene to a plant, for example for resistance against herbicides, it can't just jump to its offspring, but also potentially to completely different plants, and weeds.

If herbicide resistance requires more than one gene, a solution to that is to just add those genes at widely separate places in the plant's genome. This would make horizontal transfer of the entire working set of genes unlikely.

Yes, but that wouldn't cover you for the unknown side effects of having a partial gene transferred to another specie with no way to know if in another context it could be express differently, with powerful effects.

The problem with complex systems with million of inter-dependent variables is that the unknown unknowns are too many and the only effective filter is time. However with those technologies ability to introduce powerful changes very fast, and little incentive from companies making them to allocate a lot of time, resources and prudence to study their aftermaths, the asymmetry of risk is not playing in our favor.

> unknown side effects

This gets into handwaving territory. Vague negatives that are impossible to disprove or even evaluate. At some point you have to insist those objecting actually have a point.

That's the problem with unknown unknowns. You cannot define them. We just know they exist, because the first thing science teaches us is the vast amount of thing we are ignorant of.

What you can define, however, is the asymmetry of risk.

For example, if a system is very complex, introducing series of intense rapid changes to it has chances of creating a strong disturbance because of cascading compounding effects on dependencies of said system. And because of the sheer size of the system, we cannot model it all, and hence we cannot predict such consequences and certainly not protect ourselves again them.

If you highly depend on the system stability, then a strong disturbance has in turn a high chance of being in your disfavor.

Nassim Taleb as a great bit about this his incerto.

In the case at hand, the asymmetry is in not in our favor, and we should be prudent. And we are not being prudent.

I'd say the irrational hand waving is rather from the people driving blind, yet stating we are doing just fine because most of the time we are arriving at destination just fine.

Especially since the first people stating we are doing just fine are the ones that have a huge conflict of interest in the matter: the ones performing the changes and expecting to benefit from it.

Now I understand that often the debate is full of facebook mums, which doesn't help giving a lot of credibility to the argument I'm raising right now.

Still, I think it's important we remain alert and objective about the matter, and I don't think any side is. Certainly not when so much money is involved.

This is exactly what's happening with Palmer amaranth and its interspecific relatives with the EPSPS gene which confers resistance to glyphosate.

I looked that up. It appears that glyphosphate resistance in Palmer amaranth and some other species is due to duplication of their own EPSPS genes, not horizontal transfer from genetically engineered crops.

_Glyphosate Resistance and EPSPS Gene Duplication: Convergent Evolution in Multiple Plant Species_

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29040588/

It's a "natural" response to the high usage of glyphosphate, similar to the emergence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria as a response to antibiotic drugs.

You'll see that the first sentence says "one of the mechansisms". There are others, including a heritable eccDNA replicon which can possess over 50copies of the gene; its function is not yet fully understood, but there is evidence of this mechanism being transferred via hybridization.

Besides, the mechanisms of HGT are "natural", and genome engineering is not a requirement. What I'm referring to is an increased resistance in palmer amaranth which is subsequently bestowed upon other amaranth species

Glad you found it interesting enough to read about though. It's fun to see my colleagues' work being referenced

It seems to be well understood by scientists, and much of science is carried out in the open, so it begs the question - who is neglecting it? It may be relevant to include those details so we know.

>It seems to be well understood by scientists, and much of science is carried out in the open

neglected doesn't mean a lack of knowlege.

>to give little attention or respect to[0].

In fact it usually implies a presence of knowledge that is... neglected. So in this case it would be anyone who ignores this danger. For illustration a simplified example could be something like a growth gene that spreads to weeds.

>so it begs the question

Do you mean to say "so it raises the question?"

[0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neglect

Getting back to the conversation, do you have any examples of real-world neglect that we can discuss?

No. I just wanted to clarify OP's statement. They weren't claiming that scientists don't know about horizontal gene transfer or that anyone is necessarily neglecting it currently, only that it is a "potential danger," which is true and discussed as a legitmate concern in the literature.

I read the comment differently, I guess we'll never know unless OP responds.

Isn’t this already known since around 92?

Edit - 1993. Also I think it was filling missing dan from the frog which then changes gender. Very relevant these days

Are you suggesting that genes can leap from frogs to humans? /s

Jurassic Park meets lgbT-Rex

"Life, uh, finds a way."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com