Extracellular Vesicles—Connecting Kingdoms

“Three Kingdoms” to Romance

Only six kingdoms of life.

There are many more phyla of microbes than of macro-organisms, but microbial biodiversity is poorly understood because most microbes are uncultured. Phylogenetic analysis of rDNA sequences cloned after PCR amplification of DNA extracted directly from environmental samples is a powerful way of exploring our degree of ignorance of major groups. As there are only five eukaryotic kingdoms, two clai...

Conversations between kingdoms: small RNAs.

Humans, animals, and plants are constantly under attack from pathogens and pests, resulting in severe consequences on global human health and crop production. Small RNA (sRNA)-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) is a conserved regulatory mechanism that is involved in almost all eukaryotic cellular processes, including host immunity and pathogen virulence. Recent evidence supports the significant c...

The real ‘kingdoms’ of eukaryotes

The diversity of life has generally been divided into a few — four to six — fundamental ‘kingdoms’. The most influential system, the ‘Whittaker’ five kingdom structure, recognises Monera (prokaryotes) and four eukaryotic kingdoms: Animalia (Metazoa), Plantae, Fungi and Protista. Whittaker’s system, somewhat modified, was presented as more realistic than the traditional division of life into ani...

Dynamic DNA Packaging Across Kingdoms: Chromatin & Beyond