Lateral gene transfer

The four disparate images shown in Figure 1 have this in common: each represents a radical adaptation that would not have happened had lateral gene transfer (LGT), also known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT), not been the powerful evolutionary force we now know it to be. Those who study the phenomenon are still struggling to quantitatively assess LGT as a process or processes and accommodate its implications for how patterns in nature should be represented — such as the existence of definable species or a meaningful universal Tree of Life. But all agree that the exchange of genetic information across species lines — which is how we will define LGT in this primer — is far more pervasive and more radical in its consequences than we could have guessed just a decade ago. Both prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and eukaryotes have experienced LGT, though its potential as a source of novel adaptations and as a challenge to phylogenetics are so far more obvious and better understood for prokaryotes, as are the mechanisms by which it is effected.