Non-Random Genome Editing and Natural Cellular Engineering in Cognition-Based Evolution

Neo-Darwinism presumes that biological variation is a product of random genetic replication errors and natural selection. Cognition-Based Evolution (CBE) asserts a comprehensive alternative approach to phenotypic variation and the generation of biological novelty. In CBE, evolutionary variation is the product of natural cellular engineering that permits purposive genetic adjustments as cellular problem-solving. CBE upholds that the cornerstone of biology is the intelligent measuring cell. Since all biological information that is available to cells is ambiguous, multicellularity arises from the cellular requirement to maximize the validity of available environmental information. This is best accomplished through collective measurement purposed towards maintaining and optimizing individual cellular states of homeorhesis as dynamic flux that sustains cellular equipoise. The collective action of the multicellular measurement and assessment of information and its collaborative communication is natural cellular engineering. Its yield is linked cellular ecologies and mutualized niche constructions that comprise biofilms and holobionts. In this context, biological variation is the product of collective differential assessment of ambiguous environmental cues by networking intelligent cells. Such concerted action is enabled by non-random natural genomic editing in response to epigenetic impacts and environmental stresses. Random genetic activity can be either constrained or deployed as a ‘harnessing of stochasticity’. Therefore, genes are cellular tools. Selection filters cellular solutions to environmental stresses to assure continuous cellular-organismal-environmental complementarity. Since all multicellular eukaryotes are holobionts as vast assemblages of participants of each of the three cellular domains (Prokaryota, Archaea, Eukaryota) and the virome, multicellular variation is necessarily a product of co-engineering among them.

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New genome editing technologies in the treatment of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy

Rossiyskiy Vestnik Perinatologii i Pediatrii (Russian Bulletin of Perinatology and Pediatrics) ◽

10.21508/1027-4065-2020-65-2-104-107 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 65 (2) ◽

pp. 104-107

Author(s):

V. Yu. Voinova ◽

M. А. Shkolnikova ◽

E. A. Nikolaeva

Keyword(s):

Lentiviral Vector ◽

Allogeneic Transplantation ◽

Graft Versus Host Reaction ◽

Gene Encoding ◽

Graft Versus Host ◽

Alternative Approach ◽

Cd34 Cells ◽

Male Patients ◽

Genomic Editing ◽

Type Sequence

X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy is a severe progressive neurological disease that is predominantly found in male patients and caused by mutations in the X-linked ABCD1 gene encoding peroxisome transport protein. The disease is clinically characterized by two main phenotypes: the most severe infant cerebral form and adrenomyeloneuropathy. The disease is treated by allogeneic transplantation of hematopoietic cells from a healthy donor to stop progression, and gene therapy with a self-activating lentiviral vector, the carrier of the functional gene ABCD1. Each method has its own limitations. The authors present and theoretically substantiate an alternative approach to the treatment of adrenoleukodystrophy; they propose to modify the autologous CD34+ cells from the patient using genomic editing, in order to replace the mutant DNA sequence of ABCD1 gene with a wild-type sequence, while replacing the mutant protein in the edited cells. The edited autologous CD34+ cells can be introduced by their transplantation into the bone marrow or by a series of repeated intravenous infusions. This method will allow avoiding both the search for a donor and the graft-versus-host reaction

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Seeds integrate biological information about conspecific and allospecific neighbours

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2017.0800 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 284 (1857) ◽

pp. 20170800 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Akira Yamawo ◽

Hiromi Mukai

Keyword(s):

Trifolium Repens ◽

Developmental Stages ◽

Interspecific Interactions ◽

Water Soluble ◽

Biological Information ◽

Environmental Cues ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Plantago Asiatica ◽

Adaptive Behaviours ◽

Do So

Numerous organisms integrate information from multiple sources and express adaptive behaviours, but how they do so at different developmental stages remains to be identified. Seeds, which are the embryonic stage of plants, need to make decisions about the timing of emergence in response to environmental cues related to survival. We investigated the timing of emergence of Plantago asiatica (Plantaginaceae) seed while manipulating the presence of Trifolium repens seed and the relatedness of neighbouring P. asiatica seed. The relatedness of neighbouring P. asiatica seed and the presence of seeds of T. repens did not on their own influence the timing of P. asiatica emergence. However, when encountering a T. repens seed, a P. asiatica seed emerged faster in the presence of a sibling seed than in the presence of a non-sibling seed. Water extracts of seeds gave the same result. We show that P. asiatica seeds integrate information about the relatedness of neighbouring P. asiatica seeds and the presence of seeds of a different species via water-soluble chemicals and adjust their emergence behaviour in response. These findings suggest the presence of kin-dependent interspecific interactions.

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Effects of taphonomic deformation on geometric morphometric analysis of fossils: a study using the dicynodont Diictodon feliceps (Therapsida, Anomodontia)

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.9925 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. e9925

Author(s):

Christian F. Kammerer ◽

Michol Deutsch ◽

Jacqueline K. Lungmus ◽

Kenneth D. Angielczyk

Keyword(s):

Sexual Dimorphism ◽

Phylogenetic Signal ◽

Principal Component ◽

Biological Variation ◽

Biological Information ◽

Geometric Morphometric ◽

Uniform Shear ◽

Geological Processes ◽

Morphometric Analyses ◽

True Position

Taphonomic deformation, the distortion of fossils as a result of geological processes, poses problems for the use of geometric morphometrics in addressing paleobiological questions. Signal from biological variation, such as ontogenetic trends and sexual dimorphism, may be lost if variation from deformation is too high. Here, we investigate the effects of taphonomic deformation on geometric morphometric analyses of the abundant, well known Permian therapsid Diictodon feliceps. Distorted Diictodon crania can be categorized into seven typical styles of deformation: lateral compression, dorsoventral compression, anteroposterior compression, “saddle-shape” deformation (localized collapse at cranial mid-length), anterodorsal shear, anteroventral shear, and right/left shear. In simulated morphometric datasets incorporating known “biological” signals and subjected to uniform shear, deformation was typically the main source of variance but accurate “biological” information could be recovered in most cases. However, in empirical datasets, not only was deformation the dominant source of variance, but little structure associated with allometry and sexual dimorphism was apparent, suggesting that the more varied deformation styles suffered by actual fossils overprint biological variation. In a principal component analysis of all anomodont therapsids, deformed Diictodon specimens exhibit significant dispersion around the “true” position of this taxon in morphospace based on undistorted specimens. The overall variance associated with deformation for Anomodontia as a whole is minor, and the major axes of variation in the study sample show a strong phylogenetic signal instead. Although extremely problematic for studying variation in fossil taxa at lower taxonomic levels, the cumulative effects of deformation in this study are shown to be random, and inclusion of deformed specimens in higher-level analyses of morphological disparity are warranted. Mean morphologies of distorted specimens are found to approximate the morphology of undistorted specimens, so we recommend use of species-level means in higher-level analyses when possible.

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