The Evolution & Medicine Review

 Book Review:  The Fragile Wisdom by Grazyna Jasienska (Harvard University Press,
2013)Do unto others; First do no harm; Ask questions.
Maxine Weinstein
EMPH published 10 April 2013, 10.1093/emph/eot006

In this ambitious volume, Grazyna Jasienska poses a host of thoughtful questions,
enough to keep a stable of researchers going for many lifetimes. The central query is
whether an evolutionary perspective can help us understand the relationship between
reproductive function and health. While she is circumspect about drawing inferences
that might be prescriptive, the ultimate goal is to inquire whether we can see our way to
identifying prescriptive behaviors for improving health. No small potatoes here!  Full article here

—————————————————————–
Original Research Article:  Testing the evolutionary basis of the Predictive Adaptive Response
hypothesis in a preindustrial human population
Adam D. Hayward and Virpi Lummaa
EMPH published 18 April 2013, 10.1093/emph/eot00

Background and objectives: The thrifty phenotype hypothesis proposes that late-life metabolic diseases result from mismatch between early-life and adulthood nutrition. More recently, the predictive adaptive response (PAR) hypothesis has suggested that poor early-life environmental conditions induce metabolic changes which maximise health and fitness in similarly poor adult conditions, but reduce fitness if conditions later improve. Therefore later-life survival and reproduction should be maximised where environmental conditions during development and adulthood match, but few studies in humans have addressed the consequences of poor early conditions on fitness traits in varying later conditions.   Full article here

Evolutionary Medicine : clinical medicine from an evolutionary perspective
Martin Brüne and Ze’ev Hochberg
A Collection of 8 articles  in BMC Medicine  (open access)

Developmental heterochrony and the evolution of autistic perception, cognition and behavior
Bernard Crespi BMC Medicine 2013, 11:119 (2 May 2013)

Evolutionary medicine – the quest for a better understanding of health, disease and prevention
Martin Brüne, Ze’ev Hochberg BMC Medicine 2013, 11:116 (29 April 2013)

New perspectives on evolutionary medicine: the relevance of microevolution for human health and disease
Frank Rühli, Maciej Henneberg BMC Medicine 2013, 11:115 (29 April 2013)
Effects of breastfeeding on body composition and maturational tempo in the rat
Yonatan Crispel, Oren Katz, Dafna Ben-Yosef, Ze’ev Hochberg BMC Medicine 2013, 11:114 (29 April 2013)

Evo-devo of human adolescence: beyond disease models of early puberty
Ze’ev Hochberg, Jay Belsky BMC Medicine 2013, 11:113 (29 April 2013)

Mammalian NPC1 genes may undergo positive selection and human polymorphisms associate with type 2 diabetes
Nasser M Al-Daghri, Rachele Cagliani, Diego Forni, Majed S Alokail, Uberto Pozzoli, Khalid M Alkharfy, Shaun Sabico, Mario Clerici, Manuela Sironi BMC Medicine 2012, 10:140 (15 November 2012)

Does the oxytocin receptor polymorphism (rs2254298) confer ‘vulnerability’ for psychopathology or ‘differential susceptibility’? insights from evolution
Martin Brüne BMC Medicine 2012, 10:38 (17 April 2012)

Differential susceptibility to plasticity: a ‘missing link’ between gene-culture co-evolution and neuropsychiatric spectrum disorders?
Rachel Wurzman, James Giordano BMC Medicine 2012, 10:37 (17 April 201

Article in the Boston Globe by  Kevin Hartnett  April 29, 2013

We’re used to controversies around the teaching of evolution but here’s one place you might be surprised to learn Darwinian thinking is still struggling to take hold: medical schools. It’s not that the medical establishment doubts evolution, it’s just that traditionally it hasn’t viewed it as particularly relevant to taking care of patients.   Read the original article here 

In a previous post (http://evmedreview.com/?p=1034), I discussed a study from Stuart Orkin’s lab that illustrated the exploitation of genetic variants that influence a disease-related phenotype to design a possible therapy for a murine version of sickle cell disease.  Increased fetal hemoglobin expression had been demonstrated to diminish the severity of sickle cell disease in mice, as is true also in humans.  Orkin and colleagues showed that eliminating a gene (BCL11A) that mediated decreased fetal hemoglobin expression, thereby achieving increased fetal hemoglobin expression, improved hematologic parameters in mice that serve as a model of sickle cell disease.  They speculated about the prospects for developing therapeutic agents that could inhibit BCL11A function and thereby facilitate fetal hemoglobin expression thereby decreasing adult hemoglobin expression and the manifestations of sickle cell disease.

Another example Continue Reading »

Tags: coronary heart disease, LDL receptor (LDLR), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, monoclonal antibodies, proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9)

The Second International Biannual Evolution and Cancer Conference, “From Unicellularity to Multicellularity and Back Again” will be at the University of California, San Francisco, June 12-16, 2013 (IBECC 2013). This will likely be the preeminent evolutionary medicine meeting  in the USA during 2013.

Following the success of the first IBECC in 2011, we are again bringing together leaders in cancer biology and evolutionary theory to address cancer treatment and prevention from an evolutionary perspective, including applications to patient care.  This year’s conference features international leaders cancer biology, evolutionary theory, the evolution of multicellularity and the growing field of Evolutionary Medicine.  Session topics include comparative oncology, insights from experimental evolution, and somatic evolution during cancer progression.  In addition to talks from the experts in the field, IBECC 2013 has been planned with long breaks for establishing collaborations, a poster session, a public lecture by Carl Zimmer and a concert by Baba Brinkman (featuring a new song about Evolution and Cancer).

Early registration and abstract submission for the Second International Biannual Evolution and Cancer Conference, “From Unicellularity to Multicellularity and Back Again” at the University of California, San Francisco, June 12-16, 2013 (IBECC 2013) has been extended to May 10th. Registration includes conference attendance, Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit, lunches, refreshments and shuttle transportation to and from the conference hotel.  Email IBECC2013@evolutionandcancer.org with questions or to inquire about travel awards for underrepresented minorities.  Please go to the conference website to register, submit an abstract, see the tentative program, or find hotel and travel information.

IBECC2013 Conference website: http://cancer.ucsf.edu/evolution/conference-2013

http://evmedreview.com/?p=1656

Worm therapy: Why parasites may be good for you

The Centre for Evolutionary Medicine (ZEM), University of Zurich, is calling for grant applications.  The applicants are free to submit any research project within the wider field of Evolutionary Medicine,  preferably, but not exclusively, on the study of the evolution of human musculo-skeletal disease.  Primary current ZEM research topics (which show the area of research projects covered by this  scheme) can be found at www.anatom.uzh.ch/zem.

From Unicellularity to Multicellularity and Back Again
2nd International Biannual Evolution and Cancer Conference at UCSF

Registration now open

Keynote talks by Mel Greaves and Anna Barker

Foci:

1. cancer suppression in the evolution of multicellularity and
2. applying insights from the evolution of single cellular organisms to the study of cancer

Sessions include:

• Insights  from Experimental Evolution
• Cancer  and the Evolution of Multicellularity
• Dynamics of Somatic Evolution
• Peto’s  Paradox, Comparative Oncology and the Evolution of Tumor Suppression
• Somatic  Mutation and Levels of Selection
• Applying  the Tools of Evolutionary Biology to Cancer
• Life  History Theory in Cancer
• The Evolutionary Medicine of Cancer

Continue Reading »

Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live

By Marlene Zuk  (Norton, 2013)

Free sample from NCSE     Review in Salon   Review in the WSJ  Review in Nature

Continue Reading »

The consortium of investigators known as ENCODE (ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements) published, with much publicity, a series of about thirty papers last fall purporting to “identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence” (https://www.genome.gov/ENCODE/).  Dan Graur, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Houston, and his associates have published a paper in Genome Biology and Evolution (2013; online) challenging the assertion by the ENCODE investigators that 80.4% of the human genome can be considered functional (Nature, 2012).  Graur’s critique of the ENCODE claim is grounded in evolutionary principles. Continue Reading »

Tags: biochemical function, causal-role function, ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) selected-effect function, genetic function, histone modification, human genome, immunoglobulin gene diversification, methylation, neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), open chromatin, transcription, transcription factor

Conserved Shifts in the Gut Microbiota Due to Gastric Bypass Reduce Host Weight and Adiposity
Liou, Alice P., Paziuk, Melissa, Luevano, Jesus-Mario, Machineni, Sriram, Turnbaugh, Peter J., & Kaplan, Lee M. (2013).
Science Translational Medicine, 5(178), 178ra141. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3005687  (Not open access)

Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) results in rapid weight loss, reduced adiposity, and improved glucose metabolism. These effects are not simply attributable to decreased caloric intake or absorption, but the mechanisms linking rearrangement of the gastrointestinal tract to these metabolic outcomes are largely unknown. Studies in humans and rats have shown that RYGB restructures the gut microbiota, prompting the hypothesis that some of the effects of RYGB are caused by altered host-microbial interactions. To test this hypothesis, we used a mouse model Continue Reading »

Common Risk Alleles for Inflammatory Diseases Are Targets of Recent Positive Selection
Towfique Raj, Manik Kuchroo, Joseph M. Replogle, Soumya Raychaudhuri, Barbara E. Stranger, Philip L. De Jager
The American Journal of Human Genetics – 21 March 2013       Not Open Access

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified hundreds of loci harboring genetic variation influencing inflammatory-disease susceptibility in humans. It has been hypothesized that present day inflammatory diseases may have arisen, in part, due to pleiotropic effects of host resistance to pathogens over the course of human history, with significant selective pressures acting to increase host resistance to pathogens. Continue Reading »

Antibiotic Exposure and IBD Development Among Children: A Population-Based Cohort Study

By Matthew P. Kronman, Theoklis E. Zaoutis, Kevin Haynes, Rui Feng,and Susan E. Coffin

Pediatrics 2012; 130:4 e794-e803  Open Access

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether childhood antianaerobic antibiotic exposure is associated with the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

By Mel Greaves, in Evol Appl. 2013 Jan;6(1):102-8. doi: 10.1111/eva.12017. Open access

Cancer development is widely recognized to be a somatic cell evolutionary process with complex dynamics and highly variable time frames. Variant cells and descendent subclones gain competitive advantage via their fitness in relation to micro-environmental selective pressures. In this context, the ‘unit’ of selection is the cell, but not any cell. The so-called ‘cancer stem cells’ have the essential properties required to function as the key units of selection, particularly with respect to their proliferative potential and longevity. These cells drive evolutionary progression of disease and provide reservoirs for relapse or recurrence and drug resistance. They represent the prime, but elusive and moving, targets for therapeutic control.

HIV Infection Disrupts the Sympatric Host–Pathogen Relationship in Human Tuberculosis    By  Fenner L, Egger M, Bodmer T, Furrer H, Ballif M, et al. (2013) . PLoS Genet 9(3): e1003318. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003318   Open Access

Author Summary  Human tuberculosis (TB) caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people each year. M. tuberculosis has been affecting humans for millennia, suggesting that different strain lineages may be adapted to specific human populations. The combination of a particular strain lineage and its corresponding patient population can be classified as Continue Reading »

Stabilization of cooperative virulence by the expression of an avirulent phenotype, by Diard, M., Garcia, V., Maier, L., Remus-Emsermann, M. N. P., Regoes, R. R., Ackermann, M., & Hardt, W.-D. (2013). . [10.1038/nature11913]. Nature, 494(7437), 353-356.  (see the end of this post for abstract) Continue Reading »

Parent-Offspring Conflict and the Persistence of Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension in Modern Humans

By  Hollegaard B, Byars SG, Lykke J, Boomsma JJ (2013) .PLoS ONE 8(2): e56821. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056821  Open access

Abstract: Preeclampsia is a major cause of perinatal mortality and disease affecting 5–10% of all pregnancies worldwide, but its etiology remains poorly understood despite considerable research effort. Parent-offspring conflict theory suggests that such hypertensive disorders of pregnancy may have evolved through the ability of fetal genes to increase maternal blood pressure as this enhances general nutrient supply. However,

Continue Reading »

By Hemani G, Knott S, Haley C (2013) . PLoS Genet 9(2): e1003295.doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003295  (open access)

The relative importance between additive and non-additive genetic variance has been widely argued in quantitative genetics. By approaching this question from an evolutionary perspective we show that, while additive variance can be maintained under selection at a low level for some patterns of epistasis, the majority of the genetic variance that will persist is actually non-additive. We propose that one reason that the problem of the “missing heritability” arises is because Continue Reading »

In the past six months, I have encountered a review, by Thomas Nagel in The New York Review of Books (2012), of Alvin Plantinga’s latest book (Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism, 2011 ) and a review, by Alvin Plantinga in The New Republic (2012), of a Thomas Nagel’s latest book (Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, 2012).  Both authors are regarded as distinguished philosophers.  In their respective books, they both criticize what may be called the materialist neo-Darwinian approach to explaining life.  Plantinga and Nagel both discuss as a putative alternative to evolutionary explanations, Continue Reading »

Tags: caspase-1, caspase-11, essential genes, evolutionary theory, gene-targeted mice, growth conditions, intelligent design (ID), irreducible complexity, lipopolysaccharide, materialism, mutation, phenotype, pleiotropy, protein evolution, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Salmonella typhimurium, scientific naturalism

Christiane Goulart and Miriam Barlow and colleagues have published an important study in this month’s PLOS One entitled “Designing Antibiotic Cycling Strategies by Determining and Understanding Local Adaptive Landscapes.”

Because of the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, antibiotic cycling has been proposed as a strategy to preserve antibiotic susceptibility of disease-causing microbes. Unfortunately, these efforts have largely been disappointing. In 2004 Carl Bergstrom argued that antibiotic cycling was likely to be ineffective in the hospital setting, based on a computational approach informed by natural selection. At that time, Bergstrom left open the possibility that a cycling regime could work, but he warned that the theoretical underpinnings of such an approach had not been demonstrated.

Goulart, Barlow and colleagues have satisfied that precondition with their compelling recent study. Continue Reading »

Tags: antibiotic resistance, beta-lactamase, fitness, Natural Selection