ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
Viruses and mobile elements as drivers of evolutionary transitions.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- The Emergence of Life in the Light of Evolution.ArXiv · 2026Article
- The biology of jumbo phages.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Diversification in ANME-1 archaea is associated with the presence of highly variable genomic hotspots.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Recurrent Modular Assembly Drives Independent Origins of Group II Introns Encoding LAGLIDADG Homing Endonucleases.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- The key role of cheaters in the persistence of cooperation.BMC biology · 2026Article
- From sequencing to understanding: a grand challenge in genome-scale molecular and genetic analysis.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Heat-induced transcriptional activation of LTR retrotransposons in the regenerative flatworm Macrostomum lignano.Mobile DNA · 2025Article
- Single-particle genomics uncovers abundant non-canonical marine viruses from nanolitre volumes.Nature microbiology · 2025Article
- Key Challenges in Plant Microbiome Research in the Next Decade.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- The eusocial non-code: Unveiling the impact of noncoding RNAs on Hymenoptera eusocial evolution.Non-coding RNA research · 2025Review
- Archaeal DNA replication initiation: bridging LUCA's legacy and modern mechanisms.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Viral niche-partitioning: comparative genomics of giant viruses across environmental gradients in a high Arctic freshwater-saltwater lake.ISME communications · 2025Article
- Application of the transposon-associated TnpB system of CRISPR-Cas in bacteria:Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Dormancy in the origin, evolution and persistence of life on Earth.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Review
- CRISPR in mobile genetic elements: counter-defense, inter-element competition and RNA-guided transposition.BMC biology · 2024Review
- Fundamental constraints to the logic of living systems.Interface focus · 2024Review
- Fast and accurate identification of plasmids and viruses in sequencing data using geNomad.Nature biotechnology · 2024Article
- RNA-guided RNA silencing by an Asgard archaeal Argonaute.Nature communications · 2024Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
The history of life is punctuated by evolutionary transitions which engender emergence of new levels of biological organization that involves selection acting at increasingly complex ensembles of biological entities. Major evolutionary transitions include the origin of prokaryotic and then eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms and eusocial animals. All or nearly all cellular life forms are hosts to diverse selfish genetic elements with various levels of autonomy including plasmids, transposons and viruses. I present evidence that, at least up to and including the origin of multicellularity, evolutionary transitions are driven by the coevolution of hosts with these genetic parasites along with sharing of 'public goods'. Selfish elements drive evolutionary transitions at two distinct levels. First, mathematical modelling of evolutionary processes, such as evolution of primitive replicator populations or unicellular organisms, indicates that only increasing organizational complexity, e.g. emergence of multicellular aggregates, can prevent the collapse of the host-parasite system under the pressure of parasites. Second, comparative genomic analysis reveals numerous cases of recruitment of genes with essential functions in cellular life forms, including those that enable evolutionary transitions.This article is part of the themed issue 'The major synthetic evolutionary transitions'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.