MOLECULAR TAXONOMY AND THE EVOLUTION THEORY IN LIGHT OF EMERGING BIOINFORMATIC AND COSMOLOGICAL DATA

Abstract

A brief review is given of recent advances in the taxonomic study of organisms and current views on biological evolution and the origin of life. A discussion is presented on how the treelike and net components contribute to the topology of phylogenetic constructs, with account taken of the prevailing role of horizontal gene transfer in prokaryote evolution and life. Approaches are described to the rational selection and practical use of phylogenetic markers (including 16S rRNA gene DNA sequences) in biomedical (including metagenomic) applications with traditional and nontraditional (large) amounts of molecular genetic data. Emerging results from taxonomic studies of the Earth’s biota and the methods of their generation are demonstrated. It is noted that the current developments in particle physics and in cosmology have important implications for solving paradoxes associated with the vanishingly small probability of some fundamental processes of prebiological and biological evolution.