Light Sensing Gene from Hornwort Transferred to Ferns Naturally

An international team of experts reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that ferns got their gene for sensing light from another plant called hornwort through horizontal gene transfer. According to the researchers, ferns encountered an evolutionary burst about 100 years ago and thus 80 percent of present fern species can be traced to that occurrence. These species developed a light-sensing protein called neochrome, which makes ferns sensitive to dim levels of light. Thus, ferns thrive even on low light intensity in shady forest floors.

Mr. Fey-Wei Li of Duke University examined the history of the light-sensing gene in ferns. However, he did not find any gene similar to neochrome gene until scientists at the University of Alberta released a new database of DNA of several plant species. Using the database, he searched for a neochrome-like gene and found one not in fern but in hornwort, a moss-like primitive plant.

Mr. Li hypothesized that the transfer happened between a hornwort and a fern growing in close contact. Once a fern picked up the neochrome gene, his research indicates, it moved into other fern species as well. Dr. Jeffrey Palmer, an evolutionary biologist from Indiana University, confirmed that several evidences have been found on genes moving between plant species and he expects that more cases will be revealed by scientists in the coming years.

Read more details at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1319929111 and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/science/plants-that-practice-genetic-engineering.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=1.