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 06 July 2008 03:23 BST

Humans 'similar to sea urchins'

Friday, 10 Nov 2006 16:09
Sea urchins hold similar genetic material to humans

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Scientists have discovered that humans have a number of genetic similarities with the sea urchin.

The North American researchers behind the discovery argue that it holds the potential for greater understanding of how our immune systems work.

Both humans and sea urchins belong to the evolutionary lineage known as deuterostomes.

Publishing their findings in the journal Science, the scientists identified an extraordinarily large number of genes that encode molecules involved in immunity that is both preformed and inherited.

The sea urchin's genome (gene sequence) was also found to contain elements of the more customised adaptive immune system, which in animals with backbones produce a series of T-cell receptors and antibodies that aid the immune system.

But although the various elements of adaptive immunity are present in the sea urchin, the researchers found that they are not yet interacting.

Explaining the significance of the discovery, the study's co-author Dr Litman said: "Putting all the pieces of adaptive immunity together was clearly a late event in evolution. Such findings are particularly rare and ultimately will help us to better understand how complex genetic regulatory circuits are assembled from components that originally may have been dedicated to very different tasks.

"Innate immunity recognises disease first and we're just beginning to understand how the adaptive immune system steps in to fight disease once the red flag is raised," he added.

"This latest genome project may reveal important aspects of how our innate and adaptive immune systems interact. It may give us the best clue yet about how genes work together to keep us healthy."End of story


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