Stress‐Induced Evolutionary Innovation: A Mechanism for the Origin of Cell Types

• Published in: BioEssays Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. e1800188 - n/a
• Main Authors: Wagner, Günter P., Erkenbrack, Eric M., Love, Alan C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.04.2019
• Subjects: Animals; Biological Evolution; Cell differentiation; Cell Lineage; Cell Plasticity; cell type origin; Cellular stress response; Decidua; Developmental plasticity; Differentiation (biology); Embryos; Environmental changes; Evolution; evolutionary innovation; Genetic transformation; Humans; inflammation; Innovations; Models, Biological; novelty; Phenotypic plasticity; phenotypic variation; Phenotypic variations; physiological response; Plastic properties; Plasticity; Pregnancy; stress response; Stress, Physiological; Stromal Cells - cytology; cell type origin; plasticity; stress response; novelty; evolutionary innovation
• ISSN: 0265-9247; 1521-1878; 1521-1878
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.201800188

Understanding the evolutionary role of environmentally induced phenotypic variation (i.e., plasticity) is an important issue in developmental evolution. A major physiological response to environmental change is cellular stress, which is counteracted by generic stress reactions detoxifying the cell. A model, stress‐induced evolutionary innovation (SIEI), whereby ancestral stress reactions and their corresponding pathways can be transformed into novel structural components of body plans, such as new cell types, is described. Previous findings suggest that the cell differentiation cascade of a cell type critical to pregnancy in humans, the decidual stromal cell, evolved from a cellular stress reaction. It is hypothesized that the stress reaction in these cells was elicited ancestrally via inflammation caused by embryo attachment. The present study proposes that SIEI is a distinct form of plasticity‐based evolutionary change leading to the origin of novel structures rather than adaptive transformation of pre‐existing characters. Cells frequently counteract environmental stress by conserved molecular mechanisms, leading to stress mitigation or apoptosis. Increasingly, studies on cellular stress responses intersect with cell type differentiation programs. It is hypothesized that integration of these conserved pathways is a mechanism of stress‐induced evolutionary innovation that is capable of generating novel cell types.