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Reversal to osmotrophy in eukaryotes

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Distant eukaryotic lineages convergently reverted from phagocytic predation to osmotrophy through co-option of ancestrally acquired bacterial genes and their subsequent mobilization via eukaryote-to-eukaryote horizontal gene transfer.

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Fig. 1: Schematic tree of life that shows major avenues of HGT into and among osmotrophic eukaryotes.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecologie Société Evolution, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Purificación López-García & David Moreira

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  1. Purificación López-García
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  2. David Moreira
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Purificación López-García.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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López-García, P., Moreira, D. Reversal to osmotrophy in eukaryotes.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03088-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03088-0

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