Shorter life and reduced fecundity can increase colony fitness in virtual Caenorhabditis elegans
Shorter life and reduced fecundity can increase colony fitness in virtual Caenorhabditis elegans
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DOI：
10.1111/acel.13141
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发表时间：
2020-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Gems, David
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Galimov, Evgeniy R.;Gems, David
在秀丽隐杆线虫中，许多基因功能的丧失导致寿命的增加，有时是非常大的幅度。这是否反映了程序性死亡的发生，就像细胞凋亡一样，促进了健康？程序性死亡是一种机制，通过消灭衰老的个体来增加亲属的食物供应，这一概念并不为大多数物种的经典进化理论所支持。然而，它可能适用于具有密切相关个体的菌落的生物体，例如C。大部分克隆种群在空间有限的食物斑块上生存的秀丽线虫。在这里，我们问非生殖的成年人和他们的克隆后代之间的食物竞争是否有利于程序性死亡，通过使用C。优美的群体适合度被估计为从有限的食物块中获得的dauer幼虫繁殖体的产量。模拟结果表明，不仅寿命缩短，而且繁殖期缩短和成虫摄食率降低，可能通过减少无效的食物消耗来增加群体适应度。当成虫食物消耗率高时，早期成虫死亡特别有益。这些结果表明，程序性适应性死亡可以促进C. elegans通过一个消费者牺牲机制。因此，C.秀丽线虫的寿命可能不是受到通常意义上的衰老的限制，而是受到类似于阿尔茨海默病的程序性死亡的限制。
In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, loss of function of many genes leads to increases in lifespan, sometimes of a very large magnitude. Could this reflect the occurrence of programmed death that, like apoptosis of cells, promotes fitness? The notion that programmed death evolves as a mechanism to remove worn out, old individuals in order to increase food availability for kin is not supported by classic evolutionary theory for most species. However, it may apply in organisms with colonies of closely related individuals such as C. elegans in which largely clonal populations subsist on spatially limited food patches. Here, we ask whether food competition between nonreproductive adults and their clonal progeny could favor programmed death by using an in silico model of C. elegans. Colony fitness was estimated as yield of dauer larva propagules from a limited food patch. Simulations showed that not only shorter lifespan but also shorter reproductive span and reduced adult feeding rate can increase colony fitness, potentially by reducing futile food consumption. Early adult death was particularly beneficial when adult food consumption rate was high. These results imply that programmed, adaptive death could promote colony fitness in C. elegans through a consumer sacrifice mechanism. Thus, C. elegans lifespan may be limited not by aging in the usual sense but rather by apoptosis-like programmed death.