scholarly journals The Antimicrobial Resistance Crisis: An Inadvertent, Unfortunate but Nevertheless Informative Experiment in Evolutionary Biology

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn A. Michael ◽  
Michael R. Gillings ◽  
Mark A. T. Blaskovich ◽  
Ashley E. Franks
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Worked Examples ◽  
Effective Resistance ◽  
Antimicrobial Compounds ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
Selection Coefficient ◽  
Evolutionary Response ◽  
Stark Contrast

The global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotypes is an exemplar for rapid evolutionary response. Resistance arises as a consequence of humanity’s widespread and largely indiscriminate use of antimicrobial compounds. However, some features of this crisis remain perplexing. The remarkably widespread and rapid rise of diverse, novel and effective resistance phenotypes is in stark contrast to the apparent paucity of antimicrobial producers in the global microbiota. From the viewpoint of evolutionary theory, it should be possible to use selection coefficients to examine these phenomena. In this work we introduce an elaboration on the selection coefficient s termed selective efficiency, considering the genetic, metabolic, ecological and evolutionary impacts that accompany selective phenotypes. We then demonstrate the utility of the selective efficiency concept using AMR and antimicrobial production phenotypes as ‘worked examples’ of the concept. In accomplishing this objective, we also put forward cogent hypotheses to explain currently puzzling aspects of the AMR crisis. Finally, we extend the selective efficiency concept into a consideration of the ongoing management of the AMR crisis.

scholarly journals Evolutionary biology today and the call for an extended synthesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 20160145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Futuyma
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Epigenetic Inheritance ◽  
Reaction Norm ◽  
Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Extended Synthesis ◽  
Proximate Causation

Evolutionary theory has been extended almost continually since the evolutionary synthesis (ES), but except for the much greater importance afforded genetic drift, the principal tenets of the ES have been strongly supported. Adaptations are attributable to the sorting of genetic variation by natural selection, which remains the only known cause of increase in fitness. Mutations are not adaptively directed, but as principal authors of the ES recognized, the material (structural) bases of biochemistry and development affect the variety of phenotypic variations that arise by mutation and recombination. Against this historical background, I analyse major propositions in the movement for an ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’. ‘Niche construction' is a new label for a wide variety of well-known phenomena, many of which have been extensively studied, but (as with every topic in evolutionary biology) some aspects may have been understudied. There is no reason to consider it a neglected ‘process’ of evolution. The proposition that phenotypic plasticity may engender new adaptive phenotypes that are later genetically assimilated or accommodated is theoretically plausible; it may be most likely when the new phenotype is not truly novel, but is instead a slight extension of a reaction norm already shaped by natural selection in similar environments. However, evolution in new environments often compensates for maladaptive plastic phenotypic responses. The union of population genetic theory with mechanistic understanding of developmental processes enables more complete understanding by joining ultimate and proximate causation; but the latter does not replace or invalidate the former. Newly discovered molecular phenomena have been easily accommodated in the past by elaborating orthodox evolutionary theory, and it appears that the same holds today for phenomena such as epigenetic inheritance. In several of these areas, empirical evidence is needed to evaluate enthusiastic speculation. Evolutionary theory will continue to be extended, but there is no sign that it requires emendation.

scholarly journals Evolutionary theory of bacterial quorum sensing: when is a signal not a signal?

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1483) ◽  
pp. 1241-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P Diggle ◽  
Andy Gardner ◽  
Stuart A West ◽  
Ashleigh S Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Quorum Sensing ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Bacterial Cells ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Population Response ◽  
Future Action ◽  
Bacterial Quorum Sensing ◽  
Bacterial Quorum

The term quorum sensing (QS) is used to describe the communication between bacterial cells, whereby a coordinated population response is controlled by diffusible molecules produced by individuals. QS has not only been described between cells of the same species (intraspecies), but also between species (interspecies) and between bacteria and higher organisms (inter-kingdom). The fact that QS-based communication appears to be widespread among microbes is strange, considering that explaining both cooperation and communication are two of the greatest problems in evolutionary biology. From an evolutionary perspective, intraspecies signalling can be explained using models such as kin selection, but when communication is described between species, it is more difficult to explain. It is probable that in many cases this involves QS molecules being used as ‘cues’ by other species as a guide to future action or as manipulating molecules whereby one species will ‘coerce’ a response from another. In these cases, the usage of QS molecules cannot be described as signalling. This review seeks to integrate the evolutionary literature on animal signalling with the microbiological literature on QS, and asks whether QS within bacteria is true signalling or whether these molecules are also used as cues or for the coercion of other cells.

scholarly journals Air Ambulance: Antimicrobial Power of Bacterial Volatiles

Antibiotics ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Alexander Lammers ◽  
Michael Lalk ◽  
Paolina Garbeva
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Antimicrobial Activities ◽  
Chemical Diversity ◽  
Antimicrobial Compounds ◽  
Interspecies Interactions ◽  
Human Pathogens ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
Exciting Source ◽  
Antimicrobial Volatiles ◽  
Bacterial Volatiles

We are currently facing an antimicrobial resistance crisis, which means that a lot of bacterial pathogens have developed resistance to common antibiotics. Hence, novel and innovative solutions are urgently needed to combat resistant human pathogens. A new source of antimicrobial compounds could be bacterial volatiles. Volatiles are ubiquitous produced, chemically divers and playing essential roles in intra- and interspecies interactions like communication and antimicrobial defense. In the last years, an increasing number of studies showed bioactivities of bacterial volatiles, including antibacterial, antifungal and anti-oomycete activities, indicating bacterial volatiles as an exciting source for novel antimicrobial compounds. In this review we introduce the chemical diversity of bacterial volatiles, their antimicrobial activities and methods for testing this activity. Concluding, we discuss the possibility of using antimicrobial volatiles to antagonize the antimicrobial resistance crisis.

New Developments in Evolutionary Innovation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Gino Cattani ◽  
Mariano Mastrogiorgio
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Punctuated Equilibrium ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Evolutionary Innovation ◽  
Equilibrium Speciation

The publication of ‘An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change’ by Nelson and Winter has had a major impact on economics and related fields such as innovation and strategy. All of these fields have developed owing to recent re-examinations and extensions of evolutionary theory. A paradigm that underlies several studies in this tradition is the concept of neo-Darwinian evolution—the idea that the unit of the evolutionary process (e.g. a technological artefact) is subject to a dynamic of variation, selection, and retention leading to adaptation to a predefined function. This book refers to the frameworks of punctuated equilibrium, speciation, and exaptation, which, despite their significant influence in evolutionary biology, have been reflected only partially in evolutionary approaches to economics, innovation, and strategy. This chapter introduces the book’s aim to fill this gap, and outlines the approaches and perspectives of each of the chapters.

New Frontiers

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Gino Cattani ◽  
Mariano Mastrogiorgio
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
Punctuated Equilibrium ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Equilibrium Speciation

Evolutionary thinking has grown significantly and has had a profound impact on various fields such as economics, strategy, and technological innovation. An important paradigm that underlies the evolutionary theory of innovation is neo-Darwinian evolution. According to this paradigm, evolution is gradualist and is based on the mechanisms of variation, selection, and retention. Starting from the 1970s, new theoretical advancements in evolutionary biology have recognized the central role of punctuated equilibrium, speciation, and exaptation in evolution and of Woesian dynamics. However, despite their significant influence in evolutionary biology, these advancements have been reflected only partially in evolutionary approaches to economics, strategy, and technological innovation. This chapter reviews these advancements and explores their key implications for innovation, such as the role of serendipity and unpre-stateability leading to disequilibrium in economics systems, and the importance of adopting an option-based logic during the innovation process.

Russian Darwinism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Vucinich
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Scientific Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Materialism ◽  
Inheritance Of Acquired Characteristics

The Russian scientific community welcomed Darwin’s evolutionary theory and made it a basis of research in a wide range of biological sciences. Russian evolutionary studies in embryology, paleontology, microbiology and pathology attracted international attention. The vast scope of Darwin’s popularity in Russia was dramatically manifested in 1909, on the occasion of the national celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great English scientist and the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. All universities, naturalist societies, and many newspapers and popular journals took part in the celebration, which produced a hundred praiseful publications on Darwinian themes. University philosophers, steeped in metaphysical idealism and spiritualism, linked Darwinism to what they called ‘modern scientific materialism’ and rejected it wholly. They were strongly predisposed to welcome modern revivals of metaphysical vitalism. Freelance philosophers, usually associated with heterodox ideological movements and influenced by Auguste Comte’s positivism or various modern neopositivist and Neo-Kantian currents, credited Darwinism with making science a major topic of modern philosophy. A new discipline, known as ‘scientific philosophy’, rapidly developing in the West, made its first appearance in Russia. In the Soviet Union, Darwin’s evolutionary theory followed a course of cataclysmic ruptures. During the 1920s, Soviet scientists made significant contributions to the study of the role of the genetic environment in biological evolution and helped set the stage for an evolutionary synthesis of Darwinism and genetics. The Stalinist era (1929–53) marked a drastic departure from the prevalent currents in evolutionary biology. It was dominated by the rise of Lysenkoism, a pseudo-science identified as ‘creative Darwinism’, and was guided by a diluted version of the Lamarckian idea of evolution as a product of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lysenkoism rejected the Darwinian conception of natural selection, downgraded the role of physico-chemical analysis in biology, and paid no attention to molecular biology. In 1948 Lysenkoism was officially recognized as the Marxist theory of evolution. Under Lysenko’s influence, genetics was proclaimed a ‘bourgeois science’ and was made illegal. The downfall of Lysenkoism in 1964 brought the re-establishment of genetics, a full-scale return to true Darwinism, and a re-intensified interest in ‘evolutionary synthesis’.

scholarly journals Antimicrobial Polymers: The Potential Replacement of Existing Antibiotics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 2747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nor Fadhilah Kamaruzzaman ◽  
Li Peng Tan ◽  
Ruhil Hayati Hamdan ◽  
Siew Shean Choong ◽  
Weng Kin Wong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Antimicrobial Properties ◽  
Antimicrobial Activities ◽  
Direct Application ◽  
Antimicrobial Compounds ◽  
Antimicrobial Polymers ◽  
Synthetic Compounds ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Polymeric Carriers ◽  
Natural Peptides

Antimicrobial resistance is now considered a major global challenge; compromising medical advancements and our ability to treat infectious disease. Increased antimicrobial resistance has resulted in increased morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases worldwide. The lack of discovery of novel compounds from natural products or new classes of antimicrobials, encouraged us to recycle discontinued antimicrobials that were previously removed from routine use due to their toxicity, e.g., colistin. Since the discovery of new classes of compounds is extremely expensive and has very little success, one strategy to overcome this issue could be the application of synthetic compounds that possess antimicrobial activities. Polymers with innate antimicrobial properties or that have the ability to be conjugated with other antimicrobial compounds create the possibility for replacement of antimicrobials either for the direct application as medicine or implanted on medical devices to control infection. Here, we provide the latest update on research related to antimicrobial polymers in the context of ESKAPE (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter spp.) pathogens. We summarise polymer subgroups: compounds containing natural peptides, halogens, phosphor and sulfo derivatives and phenol and benzoic derivatives, organometalic polymers, metal nanoparticles incorporated into polymeric carriers, dendrimers and polymer-based guanidine. We intend to enhance understanding in the field and promote further work on the development of polymer based antimicrobial compounds.

The Evolution of Evolutionary Theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bateson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
200Th Anniversary ◽  
The Social ◽  
Philosophy And Religion

Charles Darwin has had an extraordinary impact on many aspects of human affairs apart from revolutionizing biology. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, the Cambridge Darwin Festival in July 2009 celebrated these contributions to the humanities, philosophy and religion and the approach to medicine, economics and the social sciences. He is a man to revere. It is no discredit to him that the science of evolutionary biology should continue to evolve. In this article I shall consider some of the ways in which this has happened since his day.

scholarly journals The Redox Cofactor F420Protects Mycobacteria from Diverse Antimicrobial Compounds and Mediates a Reductive Detoxification System

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (23) ◽  
pp. 6810-6818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thanavit Jirapanjawat ◽  
Blair Ney ◽  
Matthew C. Taylor ◽  
Andrew C. Warden ◽  
Shahana Afroze ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Mycobacterium Smegmatis ◽  
Antimicrobial Compounds ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Detoxifying Enzymes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Detoxification System ◽  
Mutant Strains

ABSTRACTA defining feature of mycobacterial redox metabolism is the use of an unusual deazaflavin cofactor, F420. This cofactor enhances the persistence of environmental and pathogenic mycobacteria, including after antimicrobial treatment, although the molecular basis for this remains to be understood. In this work, we explored our hypothesis that F420enhances persistence by serving as a cofactor in antimicrobial-detoxifying enzymes. To test this, we performed a series of phenotypic, biochemical, and analytical chemistry studies in relation to the model soil bacteriumMycobacterium smegmatis. Mutant strains unable to synthesize or reduce F420were found to be more susceptible to a wide range of antibiotic and xenobiotic compounds. Compounds from three classes of antimicrobial compounds traditionally resisted by mycobacteria inhibited the growth of F420mutant strains at subnanomolar concentrations, namely, furanocoumarins (e.g., methoxsalen), arylmethanes (e.g., malachite green), and quinone analogues (e.g., menadione). We demonstrated that promiscuous F420H2-dependent reductases directly reduce these compounds by a mechanism consistent with hydride transfer. Moreover,M. smegmatisstrains unable to make F420H2lost the capacity to reduce and detoxify representatives of the furanocoumarin and arylmethane compound classes in whole-cell assays. In contrast, mutant strains were only slightly more susceptible to clinical antimycobacterials, and this appeared to be due to indirect effects of F420loss of function (e.g., redox imbalance) rather than loss of a detoxification system. Together, these data show that F420enhances antimicrobial resistance in mycobacteria and suggest that one function of the F420H2-dependent reductases is to broaden the range of natural products that mycobacteria and possibly other environmental actinobacteria can reductively detoxify.IMPORTANCEThis study reveals that a unique microbial cofactor, F420, is critical for antimicrobial resistance in the environmental actinobacteriumMycobacterium smegmatis. We show that a superfamily of redox enzymes, the F420H2-dependent reductases, can reduce diverse antimicrobialsin vitroandin vivo.M. smegmatisstrains unable to make or reduce F420become sensitive to inhibition by these antimicrobial compounds. This suggests that mycobacteria have harnessed the unique properties of F420to reduce structurally diverse antimicrobials as part of the antibiotic arms race. The F420H2-dependent reductases that facilitate this process represent a new class of antimicrobial-detoxifying enzymes with potential applications in bioremediation and biocatalysis.

Th. Dobzhansky and the development of evolutionary biology in the USSR

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-371
Author(s):  
Mikhail B. Konashev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Synthetic Theory ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of

Th. Dobzhansky played a special role in the reception and development of the “synthetic theory of evolution,” as well as in the establishment of scientific connections between Soviet and U.S. evolutionists, and first and foremost, geneticists. These connections greatly influenced the development of Soviet genetics, of evolutionary theory and evolutionary biology as a whole, and in particular the restoration of Soviet genetics in the late 1960s. A discussion of Dobzhansky’s correspondence and collaboration with colleagues in his native country, moreover, allows for an improved understanding of the complex and dramatic history of Soviet genetics and evolutionary theory. It also provides novel insights into the interactions between scientists and authorities in the Soviet Union (USSR).

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