Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Complex multicellularity represents the most advanced level of biological organization and it has evolved only a few times: in metazoans, green plants, brown and red algae and fungi. Compared to other lineages, the evolution of multicellularity in fungi follows different principles; both simple and complex multicellularity evolved via unique mechanisms not found in other lineages. Herein we review ecological, palaeontological, developmental and genomic aspects of complex multicellularity in fungi and discuss general principles of the evolution of complex multicellularity in light of its fungal manifestations...

The identification of oncogenic driver mutations in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has led to the development of targeted drugs. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) directed against the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) target lung tumours bearing EGFR-activating mutations. This new therapeutic strategy has greatly improved tumour response rates. However, drug resistance invariably occurs during TKI-based treatment. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is one of the resistance mechanisms identified in EGFR-mutated NSCLC treated with TKIs...

Cancer is a disease of multicellularity; it originates when cells become dysregulated due to mutations and grow out of control, invading other tissues and provoking discomfort, disability, and eventually death. Human life expectancy has greatly increased in the last two centuries, and consequently so has the incidence of cancer. However, how cancer patterns in humans compare to those of other species remains largely unknown. In this review, we search for clues about cancer and its evolutionary underpinnings across the tree of life...

Understanding the coevolution of hosts and parasites is a long-standing goal of evolutionary biology. There is a well-developed theoretical framework to describe the evolution of host-parasite interactions under the assumption of direct, two-species interactions, which can result in arms race dynamics or sustained genotype fluctuations driven by negative frequency dependence (Red Queen dynamics). However, many hosts rely on symbionts for defence against parasites. Whilst the ubiquity of defensive symbionts and their potential importance for disease control are increasingly recognized, there is still a gap in our understanding of how symbionts mediate or possibly take part in host-parasite coevolution...

Since the detection of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in human plasma in 1948, it has been investigated as a non-invasive screening tool for many diseases, especially solid tumours and foetal genetic abnormalities. However, to date our lack of knowledge regarding the origin and purpose of cfDNA in a physiological environment has limited its use to more obvious diagnostics, neglecting, for example, its potential utility in the identification of predisposition to disease, earlier detection of cancers, and lifestyle-induced epigenetic changes...

The projected rise in global mean sea levels places many freshwater turtle species at risk of saltwater intrusion into freshwater habitats. Freshwater turtles are disproportionately more threatened than other taxa; thus, understanding the role of salinity in determining their contemporary distribution and evolution should be a research priority. Freshwater turtles are a slowly evolving lineage; however, they can adapt physiologically or behaviourally to various levels of salinity and, therefore, temporarily occur in marine or brackish environments...

Since the successful conquest of many acute, communicable (infectious) diseases through the use of vaccines and antibiotics, the currently most prevalent diseases are chronic and progressive in nature, and are all accompanied by inflammation. These diseases include neurodegenerative (e.g. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's), vascular (e.g. atherosclerosis, pre-eclampsia, type 2 diabetes) and autoimmune (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis) diseases that may appear to have little in common. In fact they all share significant features, in particular chronic inflammation and its attendant inflammatory cytokines...

Increasingly imperative objectives in ecology are to understand and forecast population dynamic and evolutionary responses to seasonal environmental variation and change. Such population and evolutionary dynamics result from immediate and lagged responses of all key life-history traits, and resulting demographic rates that affect population growth rate, to seasonal environmental conditions and population density. However, existing population dynamic and eco-evolutionary theory and models have not yet fully encompassed within-individual and among-individual variation, covariation, structure and heterogeneity, and ongoing evolution, in a critical life-history trait that allows individuals to respond to seasonal environmental conditions: seasonal migration...

Evolutionary theory is formulated in terms of individuals that carry heritable information and are subject to selective pressures. However, individuality itself is a trait that had to evolve - an individual is not an indivisible entity, but a result of evolutionary processes that necessarily begin at the lower level of hierarchical organisation. Traditional approaches to biological individuality focus on cooperation and relatedness within a group, division of labour, policing mechanisms and strong selection at the higher level...

The outflow tract of the fish heart is the segment interposed between the ventricle and the ventral aorta. It holds the valves that prevent blood backflow from the gill vasculature to the ventricle. The anatomical composition, histological structure and evolutionary changes in the fish cardiac outflow tract have been under discussion for nearly two centuries and are still subject to debate. This paper offers a brief historical review of the main conceptions about the cardiac outflow tract components of chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fish) and actinopterygians (ray-finned fish) which have been put forward since the beginning of the nineteenth century up to the current day...

Steroid hormones are important mediators of prenatal maternal effects in animals. Despite a growing number of studies involving experimental manipulation of these hormones, little is known about the impact of methodological differences among experiments on the final results expressed as offspring traits. Using a meta-analytical approach and a representative sample of experimental studies performed on birds, we tested the effect of two types of direct hormonal manipulations: manipulation of females (either by implantation of hormone pellets or injection of hormonal solutions) and manipulation of eggs by injection...

Variation in extra-pair paternity (EPP) among individuals of the same population could result from stochastic demography or from individual differences in mating strategies. Although the adaptive value of EPP has been widely studied, much less is known about the characteristics of the social environment that drive the observed patterns of EPP. Here, we demonstrate how concepts and well-developed tools for the study of social behaviour (such as social network analysis) can enhance the study of extra-pair mating decisions (focussing in particular on avian mating systems)...

The number of alien plants escaping from cultivation into native ecosystems is increasing steadily. We provide an overview of the historical, contemporary and potential future roles of ornamental horticulture in plant invasions. We show that currently at least 75% and 93% of the global naturalised alien flora is grown in domestic and botanical gardens, respectively. Species grown in gardens also have a larger naturalised range than those that are not. After the Middle Ages, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, a global trade network in plants emerged...

Animals that occupy temperate and polar regions have specialized traits that help them survive in harsh, highly seasonal environments. One particularly important adaptation is seasonal coat colour (SCC) moulting. Over 20 species of birds and mammals distributed across the northern hemisphere undergo complete, biannual colour change from brown in the summer to completely white in the winter. But as climate change decreases duration of snow cover, seasonally winter white species (including the snowshoe hare Lepus americanus, Arctic fox Vulpes lagopus and willow ptarmigan Lagopus lagopus) become highly contrasted against dark snowless backgrounds...

As a prevalent post-translational modification, ubiquitination is essential for many developmental processes. Once covalently attached to the small and conserved polypeptide ubiquitin (Ub), a substrate protein can be directed to perform specific biological functions via its Ub-modified form. Three sequential catalytic reactions contribute to this process, among which E3 ligases serve to identify target substrates and promote the activated Ub to conjugate to substrate proteins. Ubiquitination has great plasticity, with diverse numbers, topologies and modifications of Ub chains conjugated at different substrate residues adding a layer of complexity that facilitates a huge range of cellular functions...

Lampreys, which represent the oldest group of living vertebrates (cyclostomes), show unique eye development. The lamprey larva has only eyespot-like immature eyes beneath a non-transparent skin, whereas after metamorphosis, the adult has well-developed image-forming camera eyes. To establish a functional visual system, well-organised visual centres as well as motor components (e.g. trunk muscles for locomotion) and interactions between them are needed. Here we review the available knowledge concerning the structure, function and development of the different parts of the lamprey visual system...

Morphological evolution from a unicellular to multicellular state provides greater opportunities for organisms to attain larger and more complex living forms. As the most common freshwater cyanobacterial genus, Microcystis is a unicellular microorganism, with high phenotypic plasticity, which forms colonies and blooms in lakes and reservoirs worldwide. We conducted a systematic review of field studies from the 1990s to 2017 where Microcystis was dominant. Microcystis was detected as the dominant genus in waterbodies from temperate to subtropical and tropical zones...

Integrins are cell surface receptors that form the link between extracellular matrix molecules of the cell environment and internal cell signalling and the cytoskeleton. They are involved in several processes, e.g. adhesion and migration during development and repair. This review focuses on the role of integrins in axonal regeneration. Integrins participate in spontaneous axonal regeneration in the peripheral nervous system through binding to various ligands that either inhibit or enhance their activation and signalling...

Scyphozoan jellyfish, or scyphomedusae, are conspicuous members of many ocean ecosystems, and have large impacts on human health and industry. Most scyphomedusae are the final stage in a complex life cycle that also includes two intermediate stages: the larval planula and benthic polyp. In species with all three life-cycle stages, the metamorphosis of a polyp into a juvenile scyphomedusa (ephyra) is termed strobilation, and polyps can produce one ephyra (termed monodisc strobilation) or many ephyrae (termed polydisc strobilation)...

Males of many animal species court females using complex behavioural displays that are challenging to produce, and some of these displays have been shown to be associated with aspects of male quality. However, the mechanisms by which behavioural displays are linked to individual condition remain uncertain. Herein, we illustrate fundamental mechanistic connections between mitochondrial function and neurogenesis, energy production, and a variety of pathways that underlie the ability of an individual to perform complex behaviours...