Plant Physiology
Horizontal Gene Transfer To and From Plant
Species and What It Means for the Future
Constance Viloria
Winter 2015-2016
(1823 words)
PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 1
Constance Viloria
Plant Physiology
Prof. James Campanella
January 9, y
Horizontal Gene Transfer To
and From Plant Species and
What It Means for the Future
Recent Discoveries and How It Can Be Applied To
benefit Society
The species in the Animal and Plant Kingdoms coexist in the world today
in a delicate balance that started and can be dated back to millions of years
ago. Organisms reproduced and populated as the years went by and this re-
sulted in the diversity and evolution of breeds through the passing of genetic
information from the parents to the progeny. For a period of time, scientists
and the rest of the world believed that this traditional, vertical way is the
only method of gene transfer. It is not until recently that new studies showed
successful horizontal transfer of functional genetic information not only from
one specie to another, but also from a lower to a highly evolved class of
species (Crisp et al. 2015).
Horizontal gene transfer is the process of sharing genetic informa-
tion between two non-mating species and is more common and highly critical
PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 2
for the survival of the unicellular species classified as prokaryotes (Richard–
son et al. 2006). According to Ferguson and Heinemann (2002), the evolution
of prokaryotic species as a result of obtaining and altering specific genes that
lead to important characteristics in the organism is due to horizontal gene
transfer. Such characteristics include keeping a beneficial relationship with
another organism living in close proximity known as symbiosis, antibiotic re-
sistance and virulence. Furthermore, the mechanism is also a way of trans–
porting and translocating vital molecules such as proteins to and from
prokaryotes (Ferguson and Heinemann 2002).
Horizontal gene transfer is not as common and readily observed in the
majority of multicellular organisms known as eukaryotes, but according to
Han and Luan (2015), recent finding have indicated that genes from mi-
crobes have been transferred horizontally to more highly evolved species
such as plants and animals. This concept of horizontal gene transfer between
prokaryotes and eukaryotes, as mentioned by Ferguson and Heinemann
(2002), is something that used to be frowned upon as a result of being more
of a “laboratory phenomenon” rather than naturally-occurring.
As reported by Han and Luan (2015), the products of gene transcription
with an approximate length of 19-25 nucleotides known as small RNAs, move
between plants to animals and plants to viruses in a horizontal fashion.
These small RNAs function as regulatory molecules and play an important
