Re:Tiny fern has the largest genome of any organism on Earth
by brnaftr361 on Saturday June 08, 2024 @01:41PM
(#40619127)
We touched on polyploidy in genetics of course but I don't recall anything that was particularly salient insofar as resistances. In humans xploidy typically results in either excessive protein expression or compromised (≤50%) protein expression - in many cases this is fatal or seriously damaging in terms of fertility/development. There are exceptions, for instance the mammalian liver has polyploidal cells.
But plants are way different in terms of habit, think about evolving to sit in the same place for a hundred years...
These for example could have epigenetic crosstalk between their environment (epiphytic nature) and their hosts. E.g. a special chromosome for birch vs oak. Or drought vs monsoon. Given the endpoint of the species is purportedly 350mn years it stands to reason that a highly specialized and nuanced system of regulatory pathways may have emerged. Sequence data and genomics would be revelatory.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was specialized information per-host which was regulated by signal produced by the host, I think this would explain redundancy pretty well. Different epigenetic pathways operating on different x¹ chromosomes yielding differential response to discrete small molecules/proteins/hormones produced by host species which prove beneficial in the looong run. This could have a whole cascade of effects or just subtle SNP differences which yield fitness enhancements. Essentially each one being a subroutine for each host case producing local optimums.
But I'm just a scrubby undergrad so with a grain of salt. There's probably many other more reasonable explanations, it's biology, biology seeks to find exceptions to every rule by its nature.
But plants are way different in terms of habit, think about evolving to sit in the same place for a hundred years...
These for example could have epigenetic crosstalk between their environment (epiphytic nature) and their hosts. E.g. a special chromosome for birch vs oak. Or drought vs monsoon. Given the endpoint of the species is purportedly 350mn years it stands to reason that a highly specialized and nuanced system of regulatory pathways may have emerged. Sequence data and genomics would be revelatory.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was specialized information per-host which was regulated by signal produced by the host, I think this would explain redundancy pretty well. Different epigenetic pathways operating on different x¹ chromosomes yielding differential response to discrete small molecules/proteins/hormones produced by host species which prove beneficial in the looong run. This could have a whole cascade of effects or just subtle SNP differences which yield fitness enhancements. Essentially each one being a subroutine for each host case producing local optimums.
But I'm just a scrubby undergrad so with a grain of salt. There's probably many other more reasonable explanations, it's biology, biology seeks to find exceptions to every rule by its nature.