Evolution of immune systems: Specificity and autoreactivity (original) (raw)
Related papers
© 2005 Nature Publishing Group RECONSTRUCTING IMMUNE PHYLOGENY: NEW PERSPECTIVES
| Numerous studies of the mammalian immune system have begun to uncover profound interrelationships, as well as fundamental differences, between the adaptive and innate systems of immune recognition. Coincident with these investigations, the increasing experimental accessibility of non-mammalian jawed vertebrates, jawless vertebrates, protochordates and invertebrates has provided intriguing new information regarding the likely patterns of emergence of immune-related molecules during metazoan phylogeny, as well as the evolution of alternative mechanisms for receptor diversification. Such findings blur traditional distinctions between adaptive and innate immunity and emphasize that, throughout evolution, the immune system has used a remarkably extensive variety of solutions to meet fundamentally similar requirements for host protection. 866 | NOVEMBER 2005 | VOLUME 5 www.nature.com/reviews/immunol
Evolution of Innate Immunity: Clues from Invertebrates via Fish to Mammals
Frontiers in immunology, 2014
Host responses against invading pathogens are basic physiological reactions of all living organisms. Since the appearance of the first eukaryotic cells, a series of defense mechanisms have evolved in order to secure cellular integrity, homeostasis, and survival of the host. Invertebrates, ranging from protozoans to metazoans, possess cellular receptors, which bind to foreign elements and differentiate self from non-self. This ability is in multicellular animals associated with presence of phagocytes, bearing different names (amebocytes, hemocytes, coelomocytes) in various groups including animal sponges, worms, cnidarians, mollusks, crustaceans, chelicerates, insects, and echinoderms (sea stars and urchins). Basically, these cells have a macrophage-like appearance and function and the repair and/or fight functions associated with these cells are prominent even at the earliest evolutionary stage. The cells possess pathogen recognition receptors recognizing pathogen-associated molecul...
An evolutionary perspective on the systems of adaptive immunity
Biological Reviews
We propose an evolutionary perspective to classify and characterize the diverse systems of adaptive immunity that have been discovered across all major domains of life. We put forward a new function-based classification according to the way information is acquired by the immune systems: Darwinian immunity (currently known from, but not necessarily limited to, vertebrates) relies on the Darwinian process of clonal selection to 'learn' by cumulative trial-and-error feedback; Lamarckian immunity uses templated targeting (guided adaptation) to internalize heritable information on potential threats; finally, shotgun immunity operates through somatic mechanisms of variable targeting without feedback. We argue that the origin of Darwinian (but not Lamarckian or shotgun) immunity represents a radical innovation in the evolution of individuality and complexity, and propose to add it to the list of major evolutionary transitions. While transitions to higher-level units entail the suppression of selection at lower levels, Darwinian immunity reopens cell-level selection within the multicellular organism, under the control of mechanisms that direct, rather than suppress, cell-level evolution for the benefit of the individual. From a conceptual point of view, the origin of Darwinian immunity can be regarded as the most radical transition in the history of life, in which evolution by natural selection has literally re-invented itself. Furthermore, the combination of clonal selection and somatic receptor diversity enabled a transition from limited to practically unlimited capacity to store information about the antigenic environment. The origin of Darwinian immunity therefore comprises both a transition in individuality and the emergence of a new information system-the two hallmarks of major evolutionary transitions. Finally, we present an evolutionary scenario for the origin of Darwinian immunity in vertebrates. We propose a revival of the concept of the 'Big Bang' of vertebrate immunity, arguing that its origin involved a 'difficult' (i.e. low-probability) evolutionary transition that might have occurred only once, in a common ancestor of all vertebrates. In contrast to the original concept, we argue that the limiting innovation was not the generation of somatic diversity, but the regulatory circuitry needed for the safe operation of amplifiable immune responses with somatically acquired targeting. Regulatory complexity increased abruptly by genomic duplications at the root of the vertebrate lineage, creating a rare opportunity to establish such circuitry. We discuss the selection forces that might have acted at the origin of the transition, and in the subsequent stepwise evolution leading to the modern immune systems of extant vertebrates.
The Evolution of Adaptive Immunity
Approximately 500 mya two types of recombinatorial adaptive immune systems appeared in vertebrates. Jawed vertebrates generate a diverse repertoire of B and T cell antigen receptors through the rearrangement of immunoglobulin V, D, and J gene fragments, whereas jawless fish assemble their variable lymphocyte receptors through recombinatorial usage of leucine-rich repeat (LRR) modular units. Invariant germ line–encoded, LRR-containing proteins are pivotal mediators of microbial recognition throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Whereas the genomes of plants and deuterostome and chordate invertebrates harbor large arsenals of recognition receptors primarily encoding LRR-containing proteins, relatively few innate pattern recognition receptors suffice for survival of pathogen-infected nematodes, insects, and vertebrates. The appearance of a lymphocyte-based recombinatorial system of anticipatory immunity in the vertebrates may have been driven by a need to facilitate developmental and morphological plasticity in addition to the advantage conferred by the ability to recognize a larger portion of the antigenic world.
Developmental & …, 2010
The arms race between hosts and pathogens (and other non-self) drives the molecular diversification of immune response genes in the host. Over long periods of evolutionary time, many different defense strategies have been employed by a wide variety of invertebrates. We review here penaeidins and crustins in crustaceans, the allorecognition system encoded by fuhc, fester and Uncle fester in a colonial tunicate, Dscam and PGRPs in arthropods, FREPs in snails, VCBPs in protochordates, and the Sp185/333 system in the purple sea urchin. Comparisons among immune systems, including those reviewed here have not identified an immune specific regulatory "genetic toolkit", however, repeatedly identified sequences (or "building materials" on which the tools act) are present in a broad range of immune systems. These include a Toll/TLR system, a primitive complement system, an LPS binding protein, and a RAG core/Transib element. Repeatedly identified domains and motifs that function in immune proteins include NACHT, LRR, Ig, death, TIR, lectin domains, and a thioester motif. In addition, there are repeatedly identified mechanisms (or "construction methods") that generate sequence diversity in genes with immune function. These include genomic instability, duplications and/or deletions of sequences and the generation of clusters of similar genes or exons that appear as families, gene recombination, gene conversion, retrotransposition, alternative splicing, multiple alleles for single copy genes, and RNA editing. These commonly employed "materials and methods" for building and maintaining an effective immune system that might have been part of that ancestral system appear now as a fragmented and likely incomplete set, likely due to the rapid evolutionary change (or loss) of host genes that are under pressure to keep pace with pathogen diversity.
Our understanding of invertebrate immune systems is undergoing a paradigm shift. Until recently, the host defence responses of invertebrates were thought to rely on limited molecular diversity that could not tailor reactions toward specific microbes. This view is now being challenged. Highly discriminatory defence responses, and hypervariable gene systems with the potential to drive them, have been identified in a number of invertebrate groups. These systems seem to be quite distinct, suggesting that pathogen-specific responses might have evolved on numerous occasions. Here, we review evidence that inducible, disease-specific immunity might be commonplace in the animal kingdom.
PubMed, 2014
To struggle for survival, all living organisms, from protists to humans, must defend themselves from attack by predators. From the time when life began around 3,500 million years ago, all living cells have evolved mechanisms and strategies to optimally defend themselves, while the invaders also need to survive by evading these immune defenses. The end results would be healthy co-evolution of both parties. Classically, immune host defense is divided into two main categories, namely, innate and adaptive systems. It is well documented that while vertebrates possess both systems, invertebrates and prokaryotes like bacteria and archaea depend almost exclusively on the innate immune functions. Although the adaptive immune system like antibodies and cellular immunity or their equivalents are believed to have evolved at the time when the vertebrates first appeared about 550 million years ago, more recent information from molecular and genomic studies suggest that different forms of adaptive immune system may also be present in the invertebrates as well. These forms of "adaptive" immune system exhibit, for instance, limited degrees of memory, diversity and similarities of their immune receptors with the immunoglobulin domains of the conventional adaptive immune system of vertebrates. Organized lymphoid tissues have been identified in all vertebrates. Very recent molecular and genetic data further suggest that a special type of adaptive system functioning like RNAi of vertebrates is also present in the very ancient form of life like the bacteria and archaea. In this review, I provide some insights, based on recent information gathering from evolutionary data of innate and adaptive immune receptors of invertebrate and vertebrate animals that should convince the readers that our current view on the innate and adaptive immunity may need to be modified. The distinction between the two systems should not be thought of in terms of a "black and white" phenomenon anymore, as recent molecular and genomic information points to the fact that a line of distinction is not as sharp as it was once thought to be, but it is blurred by different shades of grey.
Origin and evolution of the adaptive immune system: genetic events and selective pressures
Nature Reviews Genetics, 2009
The adaptive immune system (AIS) in mammals, which is centred on lymphocytes bearing antigen receptors that are generated by somatic recombination, arose approximately 500 million years ago in jawed fish. This intricate defence system consists of many molecules, mechanisms and tissues that are not present in jawless vertebrates. Two macroevolutionary events are believed to have contributed to the genesis of the AIS: the emergence of the recombination-activating gene (RAG) transposon, and two rounds of whole-genome duplication. It has recently been discovered that a non-RAG-based AIS with similarities to the jawed vertebrate AIS-including two lymphoid cell lineages-arose in jawless fish by convergent evolution. We offer insights into the latest advances in this field and speculate on the selective pressures that led to the emergence and maintenance of the AIS. The adaptive immune system (AIS) is fascinating to both scientists and laymen: we have a specific yet incredibly diverse system that can fight myriad pathogens and has a 'memory'-the basis of vaccination-that enables a rapid response to previously encountered pathogens. The complexity of immune response regulation rivals that of the nervous system in terms of the connections forged and suppressed between cells, but immune cells must also traverse the body through blood, lymph and tissue until they encounter invading organisms. How did such a system arise, and can studies of non-mammalian vertebrates help us to understand the immunity gestalt? Antibodies were discovered over 100 years ago, and major questions relating to the generation of diversity were solved in the 1970s with the detection of somatic hypermutation 1 and variable-diversity-joining rearrangement (VDJ rearrangement) 2 of antibody (or immunoglobulin (Ig) or B cell receptor (BCR)) genes. In the 1980s, T cell receptors (TCRs) were discovered and there was universal agreement that they shared a common ancestor with BCR genes, based on their similar domain organization and reliance on the same rearrangement mechanism to generate diversity 3. After the discovery of enzymes that are involved in the rearrangement of BCR and TCR genes 4 and of