Directionality in the history of life: Diffusion from the left wall or repeated scaling of the right?

Paleobiology ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (S4) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew H. Knoll ◽  
Richard K. Bambach
Keyword(s):  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Directional Pattern ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Left Wall ◽  
Ecological Complexity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sequential Addition ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Right ◽  
Logical Rules

Issues of directionality in the history of life can be framed in terms of six major evolutionary steps, or megatrajectories (cf. Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995): (1) evolution from the origin of life to the last common ancestor of extant organisms, (2) the metabolic diversification of bacteria and archaea, (3) evolution of eukaryotic cells, (4) multicellularity, (5) the invasion of the land and (6) technological intelligence. Within each megatrajectory, overall diversification conforms to a pattern of increasing variance bounded by a right wall as well as one on the left. However, the expanding envelope of forms and physiologies also reflects—at least in part—directional evolution within clades. Each megatrajectory has introduced fundamentally new evolutionary entities that garner resources in new ways, resulting in an unambiguously directional pattern of increasing ecological complexity marked by expanding ecospace utilization. The sequential addition of megatrajectories adheres to logical rules of ecosystem function, providing a blueprint for evolution that may have been followed to varying degrees wherever life has arisen.

Natural history of ABC systems: not only transporters

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 19-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elie Dassa
Keyword(s):  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Abc Proteins ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
History Of ◽  
Phylogenetic Perspective ◽  
Living Organisms

In recent years, our understanding of the functioning of ABC (ATP-binding cassette) systems has been boosted by the combination of biochemical and structural approaches. However, the origin and the distribution of ABC proteins among living organisms are difficult to understand in a phylogenetic perspective, because it is hard to discriminate orthology and paralogy, due to the existence of horizontal gene transfer. In this chapter, I present an update of the classification of ABC systems and discuss a hypothetical scenario of their evolution. The hypothetical presence of ABC ATPases in the last common ancestor of modern organisms is discussed, as well as the additional possibility that ABC systems might have been transmitted to eukaryotes, after the two endosymbiosis events that led to the constitution of eukaryotic organelles. I update the functional information of selected ABC systems and introduce new families of ABC proteins that have been included recently into this vast superfamily, thanks to the availability of high-resolution three-dimensional structures.

Testing the universality of biology: a review

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Chela-Flores
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Seminal Contribution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Molecular Events ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Right ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Cosmic Convergence ◽  
The Universe

AbstractWe discuss whether it is possible to test the universality of biology, a quest that is of paramount relevance for one of its most recent branches, namely astrobiology. We review this topic in terms of the relative roles played on the Earth biota by contingency and evolutionary convergence. Following the seminal contribution of Darwin, it is reasonable to assume that all forms of life known to us so far are not only terrestrial, but are descendants of a common ancestor that evolved on this planet at the end of a process of chemical evolution. We also raise the related question of whether the molecular events that were precursors to the origin of life on Earth are bound to occur elsewhere in the Universe, wherever the environmental conditions are similar to the terrestrial ones. We refer to ‘cosmic convergence’ as the possible occurrence elsewhere in the Universe of Earth-like environmental conditions. We argue that cosmic convergence is already suggested by observational data. The set of hypotheses for addressing the question of the universality of biology can be tested by future experiments that are feasible with current technology. We focus on landing on Europa and the broader implications of selecting the specific example of the right landing location. We have previously discussed the corresponding miniaturized equipment that is already in existence. The significance of these crucial points needs to be put into a wider scientific perspective, which is one of the main objectives of this review.

scholarly journals A flagellate-to-amoeboid switch in the closest living relatives of animals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaut Brunet ◽  
Marvin Albert ◽  
William Roman ◽  
Danielle C. Spitzer ◽  
Nicole King
Keyword(s):  
Epithelial Cells ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Cell Phenotype ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Animal Evolution ◽  
Amoeboid Motility ◽  
History Of ◽  
Different Cell Types ◽  
Amoeboid Cells

The evolution of different cell types was a key process of early animal evolution1–3. Two fundamental cell types, epithelial cells and amoeboid cells, are broadly distributed across the animal tree of life4,5 but their origin and early evolution are unclear. Epithelial cells are polarized, have a fixed shape and often bear an apical cilium and microvilli. These features are shared with choanoflagellates – the closest living relatives of animals – and are thought to have been inherited from their last common ancestor with animals1,6,7. The deformable amoeboid cells of animals, on the other hand, seem strikingly different from choanoflagellates and instead evoke more distantly related eukaryotes, such as diverse amoebae – but it has been unclear whether that similarity reflects common ancestry or convergence8. Here, we show that choanoflagellates subjected to spatial confinement differentiate into an amoeboid phenotype by retracting their flagella and microvilli, generating blebs, and activating myosin-based motility. Choanoflagellate cell crawling is polarized by geometrical features of the substrate and allows escape from confined microenvironments. The confinement-induced amoeboid switch is conserved across diverse choanoflagellate species and greatly expands the known phenotypic repertoire of choanoflagellates. The broad phylogenetic distribution of the amoeboid cell phenotype across animals9–14 and choanoflagellates, as well as the conserved role of myosin, suggests that myosin-mediated amoeboid motility was present in the life history of their last common ancestor. Thus, the duality between animal epithelial and crawling cells might have evolved from a temporal phenotypic switch between flagellate and amoeboid forms in their single-celled ancestors3,15,16.

scholarly journals Evolutionary history and metabolic insights of ancient mammalian uricases

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (10) ◽  
pp. 3763-3768 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Kratzer ◽  
Miguel A. Lanaspa ◽  
Michael N. Murphy ◽  
Christina Cicerchi ◽  
Christina L. Graves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Uric Acid ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Tumor Lysis Syndrome ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Monosodium Urate ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
History Of

Uricase is an enzyme involved in purine catabolism and is found in all three domains of life. Curiously, uricase is not functional in some organisms despite its role in converting highly insoluble uric acid into 5-hydroxyisourate. Of particular interest is the observation that apes, including humans, cannot oxidize uric acid, and it appears that multiple, independent evolutionary events led to the silencing or pseudogenization of the uricase gene in ancestral apes. Various arguments have been made to suggest why natural selection would allow the accumulation of uric acid despite the physiological consequences of crystallized monosodium urate acutely causing liver/kidney damage or chronically causing gout. We have applied evolutionary models to understand the history of primate uricases by resurrecting ancestral mammalian intermediates before the pseudogenization events of this gene family. Resurrected proteins reveal that ancestral uricases have steadily decreased in activity since the last common ancestor of mammals gave rise to descendent primate lineages. We were also able to determine the 3D distribution of amino acid replacements as they accumulated during evolutionary history by crystallizing a mammalian uricase protein. Further, ancient and modern uricases were stably transfected into HepG2 liver cells to test one hypothesis that uricase pseudogenization allowed ancient frugivorous apes to rapidly convert fructose into fat. Finally, pharmacokinetics of an ancient uricase injected in rodents suggest that our integrated approach provides the foundation for an evolutionarily-engineered enzyme capable of treating gout and preventing tumor lysis syndrome in human patients.

scholarly journals On the last common ancestor and early evolution of eukaryotes: reconstructing the history of mitochondrial ribosomes

2011 ◽  
Vol 162 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elie Desmond ◽  
Celine Brochier-Armanet ◽  
Patrick Forterre ◽  
Simonetta Gribaldo
Keyword(s):  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Early Evolution ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Mitochondrial Ribosomes ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Genetic variations within human gained enhancer elements affect human brain sulcal morphology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herve Lemaitre ◽  
Yann Le Guen ◽  
Amanda K. Tilot ◽  
Jason L. Stein ◽  
Cathy Philippe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Cortical Folding ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Sulcal Morphology ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe expansion of the cerebral cortex is one of the most distinctive changes in the evolution of the human brain. Cortical expansion and related increases in cortical folding may have contributed to emergence of our capacities for high-order cognitive abilities. Molecular analysis of humans, archaic hominins, and non-human primates has allowed identification of chromosomal regions showing evolutionary changes at different points of our phylogenetic history. In this study, we assessed the contributions of genomic annotations spanning 30 million years to human sulcal morphology measured via MRI in more than 18,000 participants from the UK Biobank. We found that variation within brain-expressed human gained enhancers, regulatory genetic elements that emerged since our last common ancestor with Old World monkeys, explained more trait heritability than expected for the left and right calloso-marginal posterior fissures and the right central sulcus. Intriguingly, these are sulci that have been previously linked to the evolution of locomotion in primates and later on bipedalism in our hominin ancestors.

scholarly journals The evolutionary history of the hominin hand since the last common ancestor of Pan and Homo

2008 ◽  
Vol 212 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew W. Tocheri ◽  
Caley M. Orr ◽  
Marc C. Jacofsky ◽  
Mary W. Marzke
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals The Evolutionary History of New Zealand Deschampsia Is Marked by Long-Distance Dispersal, Endemism, and Hybridization

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1001
Author(s):  
Zhiqing Xue ◽  
Josef Greimler ◽  
Ovidiu Paun ◽  
Kerry Ford ◽  
Michael H. J. Barfuss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Plastid Dna ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Long Distance Dispersal ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Test Species ◽  
History Of

The contrasting evolutionary histories of endemic versus related cosmopolitan species provide avenues to understand the spatial drivers and limitations of biodiversity. Here, we investigated the evolutionary history of three New Zealand endemic Deschampsia species, and how they are related to cosmopolitan D. cespitosa. We used RADseq to test species delimitations, infer a dated species tree, and investigate gene flow patterns between the New Zealand endemics and the D. cespitosa populations of New Zealand, Australia and Korea. Whole plastid DNA analysis was performed on a larger worldwide sampling. Morphometrics of selected characters were applied to New Zealand sampling. Our RADseq review of over 55 Mbp showed the endemics as genetically well-defined from each other. Their last common ancestor with D. cespitosa lived during the last ten MY. The New Zealand D. cespitosa appears in a clade with Australian and Korean samples. Whole plastid DNA analysis revealed the endemics as members of a southern hemisphere clade, excluding the extant D. cespitosa of New Zealand. Both data provided strong evidence for hybridization between D. cespitosa and D. chapmanii. Our findings provide evidence for at least two migration events of the genus Deschampsia to New Zealand and hybridization between D. cespitosa and endemic taxa.

The hyperthermophilic origin of life revisited

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.W. Schwartzman ◽  
C.H. Lineweaver
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Genetic Distances ◽  
Early Earth ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
The Origin Of Life

We revisit the case for the hyperthermophilic scenario for the origin of life and the last common ancestor. Evidence includes studies of phylogenetic trees, rRNA, G and C content, hyperthermophilic proteins, correlations between maximal temperature tolerances and genetic distances, saline stabilization of DNA/RNA, and the inferred climatic temperatures of the early Earth. Although some doubts remain, the case for hot biogenesis and the last common ancestor has gotten stronger.

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