From: Philos Anthropy (anthropy@inwave.com)
Date: Thu Dec 18 1997 - 15:34:25 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
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> Philos Anthropy <anthropy@inwave.com> writes:
>
> > I would suggest that primitive sex evolved similarly to the way it
> > is still done in bacteria. Yes bacteria usually are asexual but on
> > rare occasion they exchange genetic information in a process called
> > conjugation in which "plus" (+) and minus (-) or positve and
> > negative strands. The F+ or male has a plasmid that codes for a
> > projectile (called a "sex pilus", really it is) that then penetrates
> > the F- or female bacteria and initiates conjugation with an
> > endonuclease that nicks one strand of the double helix of the F-.
> > The F- strand then adds this F+ strand DNA to her genome as she
> > synthesizes a complementary strand. No courting. No romance :-(
>
> Is conjugation that rare? I was on a lecture about how plasmids evolve
> (they are selfish replicators, after all, and do their best to
> maximize their fitness) and I got the impression they are sometimes
> almost littering the cellular environment.
It may be more common than was portrayed in my Biochemistry book and
indicated by the professors I've had but it is biological "standard wisdom"
at least that bacteria usually reproduce asexually by mitotic division.
>
>
> And by the way, there has to be some chemical courting for the sex
> pilus to find the F- bacteria - chemotactic desire...
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
> asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
> GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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