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by catalogia 2256 days ago
Relating to platypus and horizontal gene transfer, I found this, which seems to be not quite what you're talking about: Horizontal transfer of BovB and L1 retrotransposons in eukaryotes. Genome Biology, 19(1). doi:10.1186/s13059-018-1456-7

Regardless, horizontal gene transfer certainly does happen.

1 comments

Your paper is what the article I quoted seems to have been based on. It also mentions L1 and BovB. Well, I have some serious taking back to do!
If you'd like a curated collection of many papers on horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes, it comprises much of the evidence presented at https://www.panspermia.org/archindex.htm . Having followed this collection since 2010, I have gotten the sense that horizontal gene transfer to/from eukaryotes is not only common but an important mechanism of evolution.
Yeah most people think evolution is just natural selection and accidental mutations, which is a high schooler understanding's of it. I'm not being derogatory, it's literally what I learned in high school and I don't blame people for not digging further if they haven't taken classes afterwards.