The Primordial Vrm System And The Evolution Of Vertebrate Immunity

Download or read book The Primordial VRM System and the Evolution of Vertebrate Immunity written by John Stewart and published by R. G. Landes. This book was released on 1994 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the evolutionary origin of immunoglobulins and T-cell receptors. The complex interactions between B and T cells in response to external antigens are the major focus of contemporary immunology. This book argues that these interactions may be relatively late evolutionary developments, due to the redeployment of a system invented for other reasons. In other words immunoglobulins did not arise in evolution to fight infection. The author theorizes that the system of variable region moleculars (VRM) arose at the time of the first vertebrates by an endogenous, self-organizing process. This primordial VRM system instituted a molecular ecology, a function so vital that from then on no vertebrate has been able to do without it.