In a recent study published in Cell, researchers used a multi-omics approach to profile the gut microbiomes and metabolomes of mothers and infants to determine the vertical and horizontal transmission ...

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a microbial community phenomenon that essentially equates to teaching neighbors how to complete necessary tasks by ripping out and sharing ...

A research team shows that environmentally relevant antibiotic levels can greatly accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance genes.A research ...

The movement or acquisition of genetic material between organisms that is not the result of vertical inheritance (reproduction) is called horizontal (or lateral) gene transfer. Horizontal gene ...

The gut microbiome is complex, and can be affected by the things we eat, our physical habits, our genes, and other factors.

When the human genome was first published, the suggestion that it contained bacterial genes was controversial. Subsequent studies questioned the possibility of HGT, offering alternate explanations for ...

Ultra-processed diets are driving gut bacteria to evolve rapidly at a genetic level. Microbes now switch on DNA fragments to ...

A new study has shown that virus-like transposons, called Mavericks, are responsible for horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in nematodes. Researchers led by Alejandro Burga at the Austrian Academy of ...

An introner jumped between this species, a glass sponge, and an unrelated species of marine protist called a dinoflagellate. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, ...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the transfer of genetic material between distinct species, a process that plays a major role in the evolution of a genome. There is an increasing body of evidence for ...