Immunity and lifespan: answering long-standing questions with comparative genomics
(2022) In Trends in Genetics 38(7). p.650-661- Abstract
- Long life requires individuals to defend themselves against pathogens over prolonged periods of time whilst minimising damage to themselves. In vertebrates, pathogen defence is provided by two integrated systems, innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is relatively nonspecific, resulting in collateral damage to hosts, and does not involve canonical immunological memory. In contrast, adaptive immunity is highly specific and confers long-lasting memory, which are features that are predicted to facilitate long life. However, there is long-standing debate over the general importance of adaptive immunity for the evolution of extended lifespans, partly because this is difficult to test. We highlight how recent improvements in whole genome... (More)
- Long life requires individuals to defend themselves against pathogens over prolonged periods of time whilst minimising damage to themselves. In vertebrates, pathogen defence is provided by two integrated systems, innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is relatively nonspecific, resulting in collateral damage to hosts, and does not involve canonical immunological memory. In contrast, adaptive immunity is highly specific and confers long-lasting memory, which are features that are predicted to facilitate long life. However, there is long-standing debate over the general importance of adaptive immunity for the evolution of extended lifespans, partly because this is difficult to test. We highlight how recent improvements in whole genome assemblies open the door to immunogenomic comparative analyses that enable the coevolution of longevity and specific immune traits to be disentangled. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/f74fd2ad-97c1-4f20-901a-f89378bf2c1d
- author
- O'Connor, Emily LU and Cornwallis, Charlie LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-04-22
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Lifespan, Longevity, Immune genes, Adaptive immunity, Innate immunity
- in
- Trends in Genetics
- volume
- 38
- issue
- 7
- pages
- 650 - 661
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85129047961
- pmid:35469708
- ISSN
- 1362-4555
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.tig.2022.02.014
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- f74fd2ad-97c1-4f20-901a-f89378bf2c1d
- date added to LUP
- 2022-05-19 09:04:35
- date last changed
- 2022-08-24 03:00:03
@article{f74fd2ad-97c1-4f20-901a-f89378bf2c1d,
abstract = {{Long life requires individuals to defend themselves against pathogens over prolonged periods of time whilst minimising damage to themselves. In vertebrates, pathogen defence is provided by two integrated systems, innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is relatively nonspecific, resulting in collateral damage to hosts, and does not involve canonical immunological memory. In contrast, adaptive immunity is highly specific and confers long-lasting memory, which are features that are predicted to facilitate long life. However, there is long-standing debate over the general importance of adaptive immunity for the evolution of extended lifespans, partly because this is difficult to test. We highlight how recent improvements in whole genome assemblies open the door to immunogenomic comparative analyses that enable the coevolution of longevity and specific immune traits to be disentangled.}},
author = {{O'Connor, Emily and Cornwallis, Charlie}},
issn = {{1362-4555}},
keywords = {{Lifespan; Longevity; Immune genes; Adaptive immunity; Innate immunity}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{04}},
number = {{7}},
pages = {{650--661}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Trends in Genetics}},
title = {{Immunity and lifespan: answering long-standing questions with comparative genomics}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2022.02.014}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.tig.2022.02.014}},
volume = {{38}},
year = {{2022}},
}