scholarly journals At the feet of the master: the search for universalities. Divining the evolutionary selection pressures that resulted in an immune system

1998 ◽  
Vol 80 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 54-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Immune System ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Evolutionary Selection

scholarly journals BMD Loci Contribute to Ethnic and Developmental Differences in Skeletal Fragility across Populations: Assessment of Evolutionary Selection Pressures

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (11) ◽  
pp. 2961-2972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Medina-Gómez ◽  
Alessandra Chesi ◽  
Denise H.M. Heppe ◽  
Babette S. Zemel ◽  
Jia-Lian Yin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Skeletal Fragility ◽  
Evolutionary Selection

Pulmonary Surfactant: The Key to the Evolution of Air Breathing

Physiology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 151-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Daniels ◽  
Sandra Orgeig
Keyword(s):  
Surface Tension ◽  
Lipid Composition ◽  
Pulmonary Surfactant ◽  
Liquid Interface ◽  
Evolutionary Origin ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Air Breathing ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Air Liquid Interface

Pulmonary surfactant controls the surface tension at the air-liquid interface within the lung. This system had a single evolutionary origin that predates the evolution of the vertebrates and lungs. The lipid composition of surfactant has been subjected to evolutionary selection pressures, particularly temperature, throughout the evolution of the vertebrates.

The fight against cancer: is harnessing the immune system the ultimate strategy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (10) ◽  
pp. 568-573
Author(s):  
Edmund Watson ◽  
Robert Danby
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Immune System ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Adaptive Immune System ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Malignant Cells ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Adaptive Immune ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fight Against Cancer

Malignancy is a micro-evolutionary phenomenon shaped by selection pressures. Chief among these is the adaptive immune system, which recognizes malignant cells as a threat and attempts to eradicate them. The task is not easily achieved – if it were, cancer would not be a part of our human experience. The field of immunotherapy has rapidly expanded over the last two decades. It has produced some of the most exciting results of 21st century medicine, and has deepened clinicians' understanding of the relationship between malignancy and the immune response. This review discusses this relationship and analyses key tools in the immunotherapy arsenal.

scholarly journals Preferring and Detecting Face Symmetry: Comparing Children and Adults Judging Human and Monkey Faces

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2112
Author(s):  
Anthony C. Little ◽  
Jack A. F. Griffey
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Partner Preference ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Advantage ◽  
Human Faces

Background: Visual symmetry is often found attractive. Symmetry may be preferred either due to a bias in the visual system or due to evolutionary selection pressures related to partner preference. Simple perceptual bias views predict that symmetry preferences should be similar across types of stimuli and unlikely to be related to factors such as age. Methods: The current study examined preferences for symmetry across age groups (pre-puberty vs post-puberty) and stimuli type (human face vs monkey face). Pairs of images manipulated for symmetry were presented and participants asked to choose the image they preferred. Participants repeated the task and were asked to detect symmetry. Results: Both age of observer and stimuli type were associated with symmetry preferences. Older observers had higher preferences for symmetry but preferred it most in human vs monkey stimuli. Across both age groups, symmetry preferences and detection abilities were weakly related. Conclusions: The study supports some ideas from an evolutionary advantage view of symmetry preference, whereby symmetry is expected be higher for potential partners (here human faces) and higher post-puberty when partner choice becomes more relevant. Such potentially motivational based preferences challenge perceptual bias explanations as a sole explanation for symmetry preferences but may occur alongside them.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Identification of Flowering-Time Genes in Brassica Species and Reveals a Correlation between Selective Pressure and Expression Patterns of Vernalization-Pathway Genes in Brassica napus

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 3632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haojie Li ◽  
Yonghai Fan ◽  
Jingyin Yu ◽  
Liang Chai ◽  
Jingfang Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brassica Napus ◽  
Flowering Time ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Brassica Species ◽  
Synonymous Substitution ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Brassica Crops ◽  
Model Plant Arabidopsis Thaliana ◽  
Vernalization Pathway

Flowering time is a key agronomic trait, directly influencing crop yield and quality. Many flowering-time genes have been identified and characterized in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana; however, these genes remain uncharacterized in many agronomically important Brassica crops. In this study, we identified 1064, 510, and 524 putative orthologs of A. thaliana flowering-time genes from Brassica napus, Brassica rapa, and Brassica oleracea, respectively, and found that genes involved in the aging and ambient temperature pathways were fewer than those in other flowering pathways. Flowering-time genes were distributed mostly on chromosome C03 in B. napus and B. oleracea, and on chromosome A09 in B. rapa. Calculation of non-synonymous (Ka)/synonymous substitution (Ks) ratios suggested that flowering-time genes in vernalization pathways experienced higher selection pressure than those in other pathways. Expression analysis showed that most vernalization-pathway genes were expressed in flowering organs. Approximately 40% of these genes were highly expressed in the anther, whereas flowering-time integrator genes were expressed in a highly organ-specific manner. Evolutionary selection pressures were negatively correlated with the breadth and expression levels of vernalization-pathway genes. These findings provide an integrated framework of flowering-time genes in these three Brassica crops and provide a foundation for deciphering the relationship between gene expression patterns and their evolutionary selection pressures in Brassica napus.

scholarly journals Why Control Activity? Evolutionary Selection Pressures Affecting the Development of Physical Activity Genetic and Biological Regulation

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Timothy Lightfoot
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
Control Activity ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Biological Regulation ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Energy Expenditures ◽  
Genomic Locations

The literature strongly suggests that daily physical activity is genetically and biologically regulated. Potential identities of the responsible mechanisms are unclear, but little has been written concerning the possible evolutionary selection pressures leading to the development of genetic/biological controls of physical activity. Given the weak relationship between exercise endurance and activity levels and the differential genomic locations associated with the regulation of endurance and activity, it is probable that regulation of endurance and activity evolved separately. This hypothesis paper considers energy expenditures and duration of activity in hunter/gatherers, pretechnology farmers, and modern Western societies and considers the potential of each to selectively influence the development of activity regulation. Food availability is also considered given the known linkage of caloric restriction on physical activity as well as early data relating food oversupply to physical inactivity. Elucidating the selection pressures responsible for the genetic/biological control of activity will allow further consideration of these pressures on activity in today’s society, especially the linkages between food and activity. Further, current food abundance is removing the cues for activity that were present for the first 40,000 years of human evolution, and thus future research should investigate the effects of this abundance upon the mechanisms regulating activity.

The bottleneck may be the solution, not the problem

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnon Lotem ◽  
Oren Kolodny ◽  
Joseph Y. Halpern ◽  
Luca Onnis ◽  
Shimon Edelman
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Recent Theory ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Biological Trait ◽  
Memory Bottleneck

AbstractAs a highly consequential biological trait, a memory “bottleneck” cannot escape selection pressures. It must therefore co-evolve with other cognitive mechanisms rather than act as an independent constraint. Recent theory and an implemented model of language acquisition suggest that a limit on working memory may evolve to help learning. Furthermore, it need not hamper the use of language for communication.

Learned Placebo Effects in the Immune System

2014 ◽  
Vol 222 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Vits ◽  
Manfred Schedlowski
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Associative Learning ◽  
Placebo Response ◽  
Immunosuppressive Drug ◽  
Immune Functions ◽  
Placebo Effects ◽  
New Therapeutic Approaches ◽  
Biological Variables ◽  
Experimental Approaches

Associative learning processes are one of the major neuropsychological mechanisms steering the placebo response in different physiological systems and end organ functions. Learned placebo effects on immune functions are based on the bidirectional communication between the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral immune system. Based on this “hardware,” experimental evidence in animals and humans showed that humoral and cellular immune functions can be affected by behavioral conditioning processes. We will first highlight and summarize data documenting the variety of experimental approaches conditioning protocols employed, affecting different immunological functions by associative learning. Taking a well-established paradigm employing a conditioned taste aversion model in rats with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as an unconditioned stimulus (US) as an example, we will then summarize the efferent and afferent communication pathways as well as central processes activated during a learned immunosuppression. In addition, the potential clinical relevance of learned placebo effects on the outcome of immune-related diseases has been demonstrated in a number of different clinical conditions in rodents. More importantly, the learned immunosuppression is not restricted to experimental animals but can be also induced in humans. These data so far show that (i) behavioral conditioned immunosuppression is not limited to a single event but can be reproduced over time, (ii) immunosuppression cannot be induced by mere expectation, (iii) psychological and biological variables can be identified as predictors for this learned immunosuppression. Together with experimental approaches employing a placebo-controlled dose reduction these data provide a basis for new therapeutic approaches to the treatment of diseases where a suppression of immune functions is required via modulation of nervous system-immune system communication by learned placebo effects.

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