The immune system of vertebrate animals consists of two components: the innate immune response, a constitutive system ready to respond to a pathogen, and the adaptive immune response, a system of immunological memory that responds to previously encountered pathogens.
In a study led by Dr. Anlong Xu of Sun Yat-sen University, scientists searched the amphioxus genome for genes that may be relevant to immunity in order to gain an understanding of what the immune system repertoire of the vertebrate ancestor may have looked like.
"Our chordate ancestors had a remarkably elaborate innate immune system, but this system was somehow reduced in the vertebrate lineage, which is unusual to our conventional thinking of the immune system," explains Xu.
Furthermore, Xu notes that this work helps to describe a global picture of innate immunity and uncover the evolutionary footsteps underlying the evolution of human immune pathways.
Reference:
"Genomic analysis of the immune gene repertoire of amphioxus reveals extraordinary innate complexity and diversity."
Huang, S., Yuan, S., Guo, L., Yu, Y., Li, J., Wu, T., Liu, T., Yang, M., Wu, K., Liu, H., Ge, J., Yu, Y., Huang, H., Dong, M., Yu, C., Chen, S., Xu, A
Genome Res. doi:10.1101/gr.069674.107
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