Horizontal Gene Transfer
From Activating Evolution
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A type of horizontal gene transfer is gene therapy - a recently developed treatment of genetic disease. Gene therapy involves the insertion of the correct copy of the faulty gene that has caused the genetic disease in the first place. Several different vectors (vehicles for the desired gene) have been used to accomplish this. Such vectors include bacterial plasmids, DNA viruses and RNA retroviruses. Please, keep in mind that such transgenic constructs are unable to replicate and are thus harmless to the organism that is being treated. Retroviral vectors have been recently used with great success to create very effective gene therapy treatments.
Horizontal gene transfer is also a natural process. A virus that enters one organism, can in essence pick up a gene from this organism during its viral replication. The resulting recombinant virus that is carrying this gene, can insert itself in a different organism, usually from the same species, but sometimes from a different species. This way a gene for a specific trait in one species can be transfered to another species via the virus. Notice how similar this process is to gene therapy.
It is interesting to note that many of the virally caused cancers, such as cervical cancer, are caused by this transfer of genes from one host to another host. You can see how the transfer of an important, tightly regulated gene, to a new place in the genome can cause severe problems. The Horizontal transfer of plasmids among bacteria is the well documented cause of the vast majority of antibiotic resistant strains.
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