The researchers of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion show in their article in Nature how the immune system has developed a "developmental space" that allows it to quickly adapt to changes in the environment
An article published by Technion researchers in the prestigious scientific magazine Nature Presents new insights on The evolution of the immune system.
The research findings indicate modularity and flexibility as essential features in the evolution of complex systems such as the immune system. These findings are based on the genome scan of 60 different vertebrates that lived in a time span of 600 million years.
The research was led by Rappaport Faculty of Medicine researchers Prof. Shay Shen-Or, Dr. Tanya Dubovic and post-doctoral student Dr. Martin Lukachishin, in collaboration with the Rambam Medical School for Human Health and Carnegie Mellon University.
The immune system is a complex system that protects the organism against viruses, infections and other hostile factors. It is made up of different types of immune cells, each of which has its own dedicated functions. These cells work together to provide the necessary protection for the body. The interaction between the immune system and the ever-changing environment is demanding Constant change of the immune system, meaning its constant evolution.
Evolution, in a general description, means Adapting to changes in the environment through random genetic changes (mutations) and natural selection. This is how all systems in the animal world develop, including the immune system.
The genes in the immune system, especially in mammals and birds, develop very quickly compared to other genes in the genome. This fact reflects the importance of the immune system in adapting to changes in the environment both in diseased conditions and in routine. Despite this, the evolutionary dynamics of the immune system has not been studied in depth until now, and this is largely due to the complexity of this system; The immune system is characterized by high variability between individuals, so it is customary to study it in laboratory animals that are in a clean environment free of viruses and bacteria - breeding conditions that intentionally lead to the fact that the genetic profile of the different mice is uniform.
The Technion researchers used a unique model of mice whose genetic variation is high so that it simulates the variation that exists between humans. Using this model, the researchers measured the immune variation between the different mice and located the genes that control the prevalence of each cell type.
It is known that genes affect cells, and the entire organism, through gene expression: the information encoded in the gene is "translated" into molecules with different functions. It is customary to assume, and this is the case in many cases, thatThe genes affect the cells in which they are expressed - They direct basic processes such as cell division, migration and death.
At the center of the Technion researchers' article is a dramatic discovery: A series of genes that affect cells that those genes gone expressed in them. In other words, these are genes that are expressed in certain cell types but affect other cell types.
The researchers show in their article that the unique series of genes they discovered is characterized byHigher frequency of mutations. According to them, this high prevalence produces "developmental space"where a high inter-cellular variability is created, which is essential for the adaptation of the organism to the environment, and this without causing significant damage.
According to Prof. Shay Shen-Or, "one of the important consequences of our findings is that the immune system's ability to change and develop new abilities depends on the interaction between different cell types more than on the interaction between cells of the same type. These discoveries provide us with an understanding of how complex modular systems develop." Although such modularity has been observed in the past in the context of genes and proteins that develop new abilities, it has never been studied in complex network systems such as the intercellular interaction in the immune system.
According to the researchers, further research related to the development capacity of the immune system will not only shed light on the mechanisms behind immune responses but will also assist in the development of biomimetic solutions (engineering inspired by nature), for example complex artificial systems (system-of-systems) which, like the immune system, are also , are based on mutual effects between functional units.
The research was generously supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Applebaum Foundation, the Milgrom Foundation, the Kolk Research Foundation, the Baruch and Ruth Rappaport Center for Cancer Research, and the Eli Kaufman Scholarship.
Prof. Shay Shen-Or is a faculty member at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, head of the Laboratory for Systemic Immunology and Personalized Medicine, chief scientist and co-founder of Cytorizen, head of Tech-AI.BioMed (the medical arm of the Center for Artificial Intelligence at the Technion) and head of the Zimin Institute at the Technion .
For the article in Nature
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Gut bacteria are able to change their 'software' in response to inflammation, which may affect the immune system
- Together we will win: combining forces between the cells of the immune system may lead to improved cancer treatments
- New information about phagocytic cells of the immune system may lead to treatments for incurable autoimmune diseases
