A history of genomic structures: The big picture

Abstract

We present a comprehensive compilation of genomic structure evolution that should help the reader who is not familiar with genomics to understand the mechanisms that are shaping its structures over time. We believe that this understanding is essential to work with genomics in the sense that it should help to formulate productive hypothesis for new original works. We believe that the mechanism by which the extant genomic structures arose is more important than the shape of these structures since evolution is continuously at work. In addition, taking genomics under the evolution perspective gives the possibility to release a unified picture of its unlimited natural complexity to the reader without fair to be incomplete. It is amazing to realize how fast complex biological structures arose in the early time of Earth, and it has been our aim to try to give a constructive view of the life journey to the reader.