Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An acquired characteristic is a non-heritable change in a function or structure of a living organism caused after birth by disease, injury, accident, deliberate modification, variation, repeated use, disuse, misuse, or other environmental influence. Acquired traits are synonymous with acquired characteristics.
Bacteria are classified by their shape. Bacteria have been on this planet for approximately 3.5 billion years, and are classified by their shape. [9] Bacterial genetics studies the mechanisms of their heritable information, their chromosomes, plasmids, transposons, and phages.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 29 December 2024. Science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms This article is about the general scientific term. For the scientific journal, see Genetics (journal). For a more accessible and less technical introduction to this topic, see Introduction to genetics. For the Meghan Trainor ...
The word bacteria is the plural of the Neo-Latin bacterium, which is the romanisation of the Ancient Greek βακτήριον (baktḗrion), [6] the diminutive of βακτηρία (baktēría), meaning "staff, cane", [7] because the first ones to be discovered were rod-shaped. [8] [9]
Bacterial genetics are subtly different from eukaryotic genetics, however bacteria still serve as a good model for animal genetic studies. One of the major distinctions between bacterial and eukaryotic genetics stems from the bacteria's lack of membrane-bound organelles (this is true of all prokaryotes.
Transformation is one of three forms of horizontal gene transfer that occur in nature among bacteria, in which DNA encoding for a trait passes from one bacterium to another and is integrated into the recipient genome by homologous recombination; the other two are transduction, carried out by means of a bacteriophage, and conjugation, in which a ...
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents.
A prime example concerning the spread of exotoxins is the adaptive evolution of Shiga toxins in E. coli through horizontal gene transfer via transduction with Shigella species of bacteria. [57] Strategies to combat certain bacterial infections by targeting these specific virulence factors and mobile genetic elements have been proposed. [ 12 ]