AJP-Cell Physiology begins a Theme series on Evolution and Cell Physiology

摘要

since evolution is the basis of organismal development ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"), an understanding of evolutionary biology is fundamental to ideas regarding cellular and subcellular organization and function. Although key concepts and findings in cell biology and evolutionary biology might thus be considered complementary to one another, the two disciplines are rarely looked at in this way. Evolution is sometimes viewed as the mysteries that underlie natural selection, but an alternative notion is that it is the history of an organism, including short-term events (e.g., development) and long-term ones (i.e., phylogeny). The application of a "cellular approach" reduces the process of evolution to perhaps its smallest functional unit, i.e., if there is no cell membrane, "data" regarding evolution are not biologic. In developmental biology, morphogenesis generates structure and function such that at the cellular level, ontogeny and phylogeny can be viewed as one and the same, and in particular, as cell-cell communication (signaling). Such an idea can focus attention to the cellular mechanisms of homeostasis that act to form, sustain, facilitate, or modify changes needed in both structure and function for homeostatic adaptation. Examples of such mechanisms include the ability of microvascular shear stress to remodel cellular niches through modification of cell-cell interactions intergenerationally; the widespread morphogenetic actions of growth factors (and their cognate receptors) to alter cell structure, size, and function; and the use of the second messenger cyclic AMP as a mechanism by which organisms respond to depletion of energy sources.