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What do the paralogous regions in the genome tell us about the origin of the adaptive immune system?
Author(s) -
Kasahara Musanori
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
immunological reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.839
H-Index - 223
eISSN - 1600-065X
pISSN - 0105-2896
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-065x.1998.tb01261.x
Subject(s) - biology , acquired immune system , immune system , evolutionary biology , genome , major histocompatibility complex , gene duplication , genetics , gene
Summary: During the last decade, our understanding of the immune system of ectothermic vertebrates has advanced significantly. It is now clear that all jawed vertebrates are equipped with the adaptive immune system characterized by the MHC molecules and the rearranging receptors. In contrast, there is no molecular evidence that suggests the existence of adaptive immunity in jawless vertebrates. How did the adaptive immune system emerge? Our recent work suggests that one of the driving forces that enabled the emergence of the adaptive immune system was one or more genome‐wide or large‐scale chromosomal duplications presumed to have taken place in a common ancestor of jawed vertebrates.