What traits are carried on mobile genetic elements, and why?

Although similar to any other organism, prokaryotes can transfer genes vertically from mother cell to daughter cell, they can also exchange certain genes horizontally. Genes can move within and between genomes at fast rates because of mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Although mobile elements are fundamentally self-interested entities, and thus replicate for their own gain, they frequently carry genes beneficial for their hosts and/or the neighbours of their hosts. Many genes that are carried by mobile elements code for traits that are expressed outside of the cell. Such traits are involved in bacterial sociality, such as the production of public goods, which benefit a cell's neighbours, or the production of bacteriocins, which harm a cell's neighbours. In this study we review the patterns that are emerging in the types of genes carried by mobile elements, and discuss the evolutionary and ecological conditions under which mobile elements evolve to carry their peculiar mix of parasitic, beneficial and cooperative genes

Novel inactive and distinctively glycosylated forms of butyrylcholinesterase from chicken serum.

Three different homologues of butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) with 75-, 62-, and 54-kDa subunit size are isolated from adult chicken serum, and all show very low or zero enzyme activity. Although the active BChE from serum with a subunit size of 81 kDa forms tetramers, the 75-kDa protein is isolated as a dimer. The homology of the 75-kDa protein with active BChE is shown by immunoreactivity with BChE-specific monoclonal antibodies, by coisolation with the active BChE, and by their identical first six N-terminal amino acids. By deglycosylation of these proteins and by their differential lectin binding, we show that the active BChE is an N-glycosylated protein of the triantennary type, whereas the inactive 75-kDa protein is O-glycosylated. These data show for the first time the existence of (1) multiple inactive forms of BChE, (2) secreted inactive cholinesterases, because they are found in serum, and (3) an O-glycosylated cholinesterase. Because cholinesterases can regulate neurite growth in vitro by a nonenzymatic mechanism, these data strongly support that both inactive and active forms of BChE may be involved in noncholinergic communication, possibly depending on particular glycosylation patterns