Fascinating science

[ysengrin]

Something reminded me of the (fictional) encoding of entire inactive genomes in another organism's genome that is a major part of Janet Kagan's Mirable stories ... researchers at the University of Rochester have found that the genome of the fruitfly (Drosophila ananassae) contains a copy of one of it's bacterial parasite's genomes (Wolbachia). Fragments of the same parasite's genome had been found in other insects recently, but this is the first time that any entire genome has been seen and confirmed in another organism's genome. It's likely that such included copies have been overlooked -- considered as contamination -- in many other genome sequences.