A Unifying Framework for Understanding Biological Structures and Functions Across Levels of Biological Organization
A Unifying Framework for Understanding Biological Structures and Functions Across Levels of Biological Organization
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DOI：
10.1093/icb/icab167
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发表时间：
2022-02-05
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Yakoby，N.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Herman，M. A.;Aiello，B. R.;Yakoby，N.
结构和功能之间的关系是生命规则的主要组成部分。结构和功能发生在生物组织的各个层次。目前的努力，整合概念框架和方法，以解决新的和旧的问题，承诺允许一个更全面和强大的理解不同的生物功能是如何实现各级生物组织。在这里，我们提供了统一和概括的结构和功能的定义，可以应用于所有层次的生物组织。然而，我们发现在有机体水平和以下的结构的性质的差异相比，以上的有机体水平。我们分别称之为固有结构和合并结构。内在结构直接处于选择之下，有助于个体生物体的整体表现（适应性）。涌现结构涉及生物聚集体之间的相互作用，而不是直接处于选择之下。鉴于这种区别，我们认为，虽然许多内在结构的功能仍然是未知的，新兴结构的功能是个体有机体的过程的集合的结果。然后，我们提供了一个详细的和统一的框架的结构功能关系的内在结构，以探索如何可以定义他们的未知功能。我们提供的例子，这些可扩展的定义应用于内在结构提供了一个框架，以解决结构-功能关系，可以同时从生物学的所有子学科的问题。我们建议，这将产生一个更全面和强大的理解不同的生物功能是如何实现不同层次的生物组织。
The relationship between structure and function is a major constituent of the rules of life. Structures and functions occur across all levels of biological organization. Current efforts to integrate conceptual frameworks and approaches to address new and old questions promise to allow a more holistic and robust understanding of how different biological functions are achieved across levels of biological organization. Here, we provide unifying and generalizable definitions of both structure and function that can be applied across all levels of biological organization. However, we find differences in the nature of structures at the organismal level and below as compared to above the level of the organism. We term theseintrinsicandemergentstructures, respectively. Intrinsic structures are directly under selection, contributing to the overall performance (fitness) of the individual organism. Emergent structures involve interactions among aggregations of organisms and are not directly under selection. Given this distinction, we argue that while the functions of many intrinsic structures remain unknown, functions of emergent structures are the result of the aggregate of processes of individual organisms. We then provide a detailed and unified framework of the structure–function relationship for intrinsic structures to explore how their unknown functions can be defined. We provide examples of how these scalable definitions applied to intrinsic structures provide a framework to address questions on structure–function relationships that can be approached simultaneously from all subdisciplines of biology. We propose that this will produce a more holistic and robust understanding of how different biological functions are achieved across levels of biological organization.