scholarly journals Evolutionary puzzle: discussing the evolution of sentience in Metazoa through a phylogenetic perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaella Pereira Andrade ◽  
Charles Morphy Dias Santos

Sentience is the capacity of organisms to feel and experience through subjective states. During the last years, several investigations have indicated that response mechanisms to harmful stimuli can be highly conserved among the Metazoa. However, there is a research bias towards vertebrates in the available studies. Here we discuss the evolution of the nervous and sensory system, pain and nociception in animals through a phylogenetic perspective testing the hypothesis of common ancestry of sentience. Our results indicate that characteristics related to sentience - morphological and molecular and behavioural -, were already present in the common ancestors of Metazoa, Eumetazoa and Bilateria. Our phylogenetic hypotheses positioned Porifera as the sister-group to all the other Metazoa, corroborating the hypothesis of a single origin of the nervous system. Our results also depict Urbilateria as the ancestor of the metazoan toolkit related to the sentience. These scenarios suggest that some attributes of the sensory system may have appeared even before the emergence of the nervous system, through possible cooptations of sensory modules of the first Metazoa.

Author(s):  
Ezzatollah Keyhani

Acetylcholinesterase (EC 3.1.1.7) (ACHE) has been localized at cholinergic junctions both in the central nervous system and at the periphery and it functions in neurotransmission. ACHE was also found in other tissues without involvement in neurotransmission, but exhibiting the common property of transporting water and ions. This communication describes intracellular ACHE in mammalian bone marrow and its secretion into the extracellular medium.


Author(s):  
Anthony A. Paparo ◽  
Judith A. Murphy

The purpose of this study was to localize the red neuronal pigment in Mytilus edulis and examine its role in the control of lateral ciliary activity in the gill. The visceral ganglia (Vg) in the central nervous system show an over al red pigmentation. Most red pigments examined in squash preps and cryostat sec tions were localized in the neuronal cell bodies and proximal axon regions. Unstained cryostat sections showed highly localized patches of this pigment scattered throughout the cells in the form of dense granular masses about 5-7 um in diameter, with the individual granules ranging from 0.6-1.3 um in diame ter. Tissue stained with Gomori's method for Fe showed bright blue granular masses of about the same size and structure as previously seen in unstained cryostat sections.Thick section microanalysis (Fig.l) confirmed both the localization and presence of Fe in the nerve cell. These nerve cells of the Vg share with other pigmented photosensitive cells the common cytostructural feature of localization of absorbing molecules in intracellular organelles where they are tightly ordered in fine substructures.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1678
Author(s):  
Liriopé Toupenet Marchesi ◽  
Marion Leblanc ◽  
Giovanni Stevanin

Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) refers to a group of neurological disorders involving the degeneration of motor neurons. Due to their clinical and genetic heterogeneity, finding common effective therapeutics is difficult. Therefore, a better understanding of the common pathological mechanisms is necessary. The role of several HSP genes/proteins is linked to the endolysosomal and autophagic pathways, suggesting a functional convergence. Furthermore, impairment of these pathways is particularly interesting since it has been linked to other neurodegenerative diseases, which would suggest that the nervous system is particularly sensitive to the disruption of the endolysosomal and autophagic systems. In this review, we will summarize the involvement of HSP proteins in the endolysosomal and autophagic pathways in order to clarify their functioning and decipher some of the pathological mechanisms leading to HSP.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ksenia Juravel ◽  
Luis Porras ◽  
Sebastian Hoehna ◽  
Davide Pisani ◽  
Gert Wörheide

An accurate phylogeny of animals is needed to clarify their evolution, ecology, and impact on shaping the biosphere. Although multi-gene alignments of up to several hundred thousand amino acids are nowadays routinely used to test hypotheses of animal relationships, some nodes towards the root of the animal phylogeny are proving hard to resolve. While the relationships of the non-bilaterian lineages, primarily sponges (Porifera) and comb jellies (Ctenophora), have received much attention since more than a decade, controversies about the phylogenetic position of the worm-like bilaterian lineage Xenacoelomorpha and the monophyly of the "Superphylum" Deuterostomia have more recently emerged. Here we independently analyse novel genome gene content and morphological datasets to assess patterns of phylogenetic congruence with previous amino-acid derived phylogenetic hypotheses. Using statistical hypothesis testing, we show that both our datasets very strongly support sponges as the sister group of all the other animals, Xenoacoelomorpha as the sister group of the other Bilateria, and largely support monophyletic Deuterostomia. Based on these results, we conclude that the last common animal ancestor may have been a simple, filter-feeding organism without a nervous system and muscles, while the last common ancestor of Bilateria might have been a small, acoelomate-like worm without a through gut.


Author(s):  
Agostino Berio ◽  
Attilia Piazzi ◽  
Carlo Enrico Traverso

The Authors report on a patient with Kearns-Sayre syndrome, large mtDNA deletion (7/kb), facial abnormalities and severe central nervous system (CNS) white matter radiological features, commonly attributed to spongy alterations. The common origin from neural crest cell (NCC) of facial structures (cartilagineous, osseous, vascular and of the peripheral nervous system) and of peripheral glia and partially of the CNS white matter are underlined and the facial and glial abnormalities are attributed to the abnormal reproduction/migration of NCC. In this view, the CNS spongy alterations in KSS may be not only a dystrophic process (leukodystrophy) but also a dysplastic condition (leukodysplasia). The Authors hypothesize that the symptoms may be related to mtDNA mutations associated to NCC nuclear gene abnormality. SOX 10 gene may be a nuclear candidate gene, as reported in some case of Waardenburg IV syndrome.


1973 ◽  
Vol 71 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvio Celso Goncalves da Costa ◽  
Samuel B. Pessoa ◽  
Neize de Moura Pereira ◽  
Tania Colombo

The main object of the present paper is to furnish a brief account to the knowledgement of Protozoa parasitic in common Brazilian frog of the genus Leptodactylus for general students in Zoology and for investigators that use this frog as a laboratory animal. Hepatozoon leptodactyli (Haemogregarina leptodactyli) was found in two species of frogs - Leptodactylus ocellatus and L. pentadactylus - in which develop schizogony whereas sporogony occurs in the leech Haementeria lutzi as was obtainded in experimental conditions. Intracellular forms have been found in peripheral circulation, chiefly in erythrocytes, but we have found them in leukocytes too. Tissue stages were found in frog, liver, lungs, spleen, gut, brain and heart. The occurence of hemogregarine in the Central Nervous System was recorded by Costa & al,(13) and Ball (2). Some cytochemical methods were employed in attempt to differentiate gametocytes from trophozoites in the peripheral blood and to characterize the cystic membrane as well. The speorogonic cycle was developed in only one specie of leech. A brief description of the parasite is given.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7430
Author(s):  
Kumiko Matsui ◽  
Takanobu Tsuihiji

Background Desmostylia is a clade of extinct aquatic mammals with no living members. Today, this clade is considered belonging to either Afrotheria or Perissodactyla. In the currently-accepted taxonomic scheme, Desmostylia includes two families, 10 to 12 genera, and 13–14 species. There have been relatively few phylogenetic analyses published on desmostylian interrelationship compared to other vertebrate taxa, and two main, alternative phylogenetic hypotheses have been proposed in previous studies. One major problem with those previous studies is that the numbers of characters and OTUs were small. Methods In this study, we analyzed the phylogenetic interrelationship of Desmostylia based on a new data matrix that includes larger numbers of characters and taxa than in any previous studies. The new data matrix was compiled mainly based on data matrices of previous studies and included three outgroups and 13 desmostylian ingroup taxa. Analyses were carried out using five kinds of parsimonious methods. Results Strict consensus trees of the most parsimonious topologies obtained in all analyses supported the monophyly of Desmostylidae and paraphyly of traditional Paleoparadoxiidae. Based on these results, we propose phylogenetic definitions of the clades Desmostylidae and Paleoparadoxiidae based on common ancestry.


2021 ◽  
pp. 037698362110521
Author(s):  
Kundan Singh

William Jones, famously, by identifying close linkages between Sanskrit and European languages, gave birth to research into the common ancestry between Indians and Europeans. In the earlier years of contention on the matter, India was considered the cradle of civilisation and Sanskrit as the mother of all Indo-European languages. With the rise in the imperial power of Europe over India, the cradle of civilisation began to shift outside India and ultimately landed in Europe. Simultaneously, the idea of invasion of India by the ‘Aryan race’, or the Aryan invasion theory (AIT), was promoted. Since then, however, one archaeological find over another have consistently refuted the AIT, proving it as false. As flawed as it remains, this theory has, nonetheless, persisted and morphed in its current form as the Aryan migration theory (AMT) and continues to find mention and favour in contemporary academic discourse. In mainstream academia, today, whether in grade-school texts or in texts meant for undergraduate and graduate study, whenever India and Hinduism are mentioned, the coming of Aryans from outside of India and establishing Hinduism and civilisation in India are discussed as veritable facts. By examining the theory in anticolonial and postcolonial contexts, we show that despite considerable archaeological evidence refuting the theories of the invasion or migration of Aryans into India, its colonial embeddedness in the notion of the racial superiority of the Europeans or people with European ancestry that the theory does not fade into oblivion.


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