Comment on Bitch shape attack

• kadup@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Mammals wouldn’t have a chorioallantoic placenta at all if not for a virus integrated into our genome. Mapping when in evolution the genes responsible for placental development was my first participation in scientific research, so I love this topic.

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  • Doom@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    explain please

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    • kadup@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Happily! Basically, the true placenta we mammals (Eutheria) have is what allows such a long gestation period. Unlike our closely related marsupials, that quickly deplete their resources and must give birth, our placenta allows for a continuous exchange of nutrients. This involves a quite complicated process of embryonic tissue invading the uterine wall, so you can imagine the kind of immunological regulation that must be taking place for that to work.

      So you’d assume we have several genes highly specific to our placenta that appear when we Eutherians first appeared… right? No! Turns out the vast majority already existed in jawed vertebrates (our common ancestor with sharks), then quite a lot show up in bony fish (our common ancestor with most things you call fish), and just one shows up in Tetrapoda (our common ancestor with amphibians).

      So most of the framework for developing an organ such as the placenta already existed for millions of years, so what exactly was missing before it can finally show up in evolutionary history? The two genes that are absolutely required for this whole crazy “let’s invade the mother’s uterine wall tissue but NOT trigger her immune system” part: CSF2 and a group of closely related genes called syncitins.

      Syncitins are the star here, because they’re actually a gene that came from ancient retroviruses. In the virus, they were expressed in the envelope and controlled the fusion between the viral particle and the host cell. These viruses got integrated into our genome, and this “fusion with the host cell” mechanism became extremely useful and crucial for the placenta, basically allowing it to exist.

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      • 7toed@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That is nuts and a really good explaination, thank you!

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      • JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Thanks for talking about that, that’s really cool!

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      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        So, in other words, viruses did parts of the work of evolution by inventing the CSF2 and syncitin genes?

        And that regulates the immune system to not respond to foreign tissue?

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  • faythofdragons@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I vaguely remember something about organelles inside a cell used to be seperate entities too

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    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Mitochondria, for sure. They even still have their own DNA separate from your actual human DNA.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah but they didn’t use to be viruses, they used to be bacteria.

      And they didn’t integrate into human genome. They’re just another foreign body that lives inside human cells, but they have their own genome still.

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  • Tryenjer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Can you send the paper? Please. 🥺

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