The day's article not just impressed me but also coincidently fits with the present struggle. To more surprise, the research got published in 2016. The paper was a statistical fact about human evolution and adaptations. Excited? The conclusion could be that of the readers.
The research's main highlight is that the evolution of humans so far is driven by Viruses. Their statistics details, how a human population responds to viral intervention. A population either positively responds to the viral diseases by having a change in their protein structure or negatively by ending in a complete disaster.
Human evolution is not just about morphological changes but had molecular changes of all levels from genes and their functions to the immune systems involved in survival and adaptation and etc. Our body consists of millions of protein molecules, many are involved in fighting against infections and diseases. When the external factor gets stronger, our protein molecules change accordingly to fight back. This case was observed in more force against Viral infections. Rapid evolution was noticed in proteins that act against viruses.
The methodology is my favorite as it is mostly about Bioinformatics, the gene orthology is studied to understand the evolutionary pattern in animals to follow up the human lineage. By selective identification of 13,000 proteins that particularly acts against viruses, they then compared the changes that occurred between the viral evading proteins and normal proteins. Viral evading proteins are observed to have evolved thrice faster than the normal proteins. How our immune functions today are due to the earlier adaptations and struggles against previous viruses. Our molecules have been adapted the best.
This was viewed as a positive approach as they had hoped that more studies could help face the upcoming viral battles, said the researchers by 2016. Now it's 2021 as predicted our species is facing another viral war. On the one hand, this search could be a success as we have achieved more vaccines in a very short time, this research could have been a fundamental source. Yet viruses are even smarter, they mutate faster than our proteins, and we are the witnesses. So the question is, will our protein molecules able to adapt to the battle or give up. Evolution is a continuous process and is not a pyramid but an inverted tree; the ancestral species and the human populations that had been driven out due to the pandemics and epidemics are the testimonies. Finally, survival is always about the fittest.
COULD WE COPE OR NOT?
Reference:
Enard, D., Cai, L., Gwennap, C., & Petrov, D. A. (2016). Viruses are a dominant driver of protein adaptation in mammals. Elife, 5, e12469.
Genetics Society of America. (2016, July 13). Viruses revealed to be a major driver of human evolution: Study tracking protein adaptation over millions of years yields insights relevant to fighting today's viruses. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 13, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160713100911.htm
Attributes:
https://unsplash.com/photos/1kPJhqTUWo4?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
Comments
Post a Comment