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8 November 2019 Immune System Promiscuity in Human and Nonhuman Primate Evolution
Jessica F. Brinkworth, Courtney C. Babbitt
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Many genes that respond to infection have functions outside of immunity and have been found to be under natural selection. Pathogens may therefore incidentally alter nonimmune physiology through engagement with immune system genes. This raises a logical question of how genetically promiscuous the immune system is, here defined as how heavily cross-referenced the immune system is into other physiological systems. This work examined immune gene promiscuity across physiological systems in primates by assessing the baseline (unperturbed) expression of key tissue and cell types for differences, and primate genomes for signatures of selection. These efforts revealed “immune” gene expression to be cross-referenced extensively in other physiological systems in primates. When immune and nonimmune tissues diverge in expression, the differentially expressed genes at baseline are enriched for cell biological activities not immediately identifiable as immune function based. Individual comparisons of immune and nonimmune tissues in primates revealed low divergence in gene expression between tissues, with the exception of whole blood. Immune gene promiscuity increases over evolutionary time, with hominoids exhibiting the most cross-referencing of such genes among primates. An assessment of genetic sequences also found positive selection in the coding regions of differentially expressed genes between tissues functionally associated with immunity. This suggests that, with increasing promiscuity, divergent gene expression between the immune system and other physiological systems tends to be adaptive and enriched for immune functions in hominoids.

Copyright © 2019 Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201
Jessica F. Brinkworth and Courtney C. Babbitt "Immune System Promiscuity in Human and Nonhuman Primate Evolution," Human Biology 90(4), 251-269, (8 November 2019). https://doi.org/10.13110/humanbiology.90.4.01
Received: 1 June 2018; Accepted: 14 May 2019; Published: 8 November 2019
KEYWORDS
evolutionary immunology
immune promiscuity
immune system
pleiotropy
primate immunity
primate immunogenomics
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