Tunicates Have Human Like Immune System?

“Remarkably similar” seems to be very arbitrary and subjective. Doe these tunicates have toll-like receptors? Antibodies? MHC complexes? Do they have TNF-alpha or interferon-gamma? Complement?

I will have to comb through the original paper at some later point and see what similarities can be found.

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@pevaquark
No it’s more like my book has a chapter on downhill racing and yours has a chapter on slalom.
All immune systems are about defending against non-self. In my analogy that would represented by all sports that involve getting down snowy hills fast. There are lots of ways to do it. Some are clearly related (sports that use skis for example). Others are much less similar like inner tubing or bobsled.
I got my doctorate in a department with very broad range of subjects being researched—ecology, evolution, vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, physiology, cell biology, developmental biology, and genetics. We heard seminars in all areas. I recall at least one seminar, maybe more, on Cnidarian and tunicate immune systems. Hagfish too!

Thanks y’all for the column idea, but I don’t think I would take it the direction proposed. These days, everything is complex because everything needs to be.

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I see. Well in that case then its similar enough as @Robert_Byers noted to qualify for ‘within the limits of a common blueprint.’

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I suggest going back:

Because what he wrote was objectively false. Under oath, he added absurd qualifications that were not present in his false statement.

I think that if go look at the transcript with your eyes open, you’ll see my point and agree with Judge Jones that Behe didn’t bother looking. If you go looking with your eyes closed, you won’t.

I predict the latter. I’d love to be proven wrong.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Mung and Swamidas (again)

The authors said:

The body of a tunicate seems simple, Dishaw says, but the new study shows “this simple system has incredible complexity” in its immune system.

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So you misread their comment, thinking “incredible” was actually “irreducible”? I’m just wondering how you made the leap from “incredible complexity” to “irreducible complexity.”

Irreducible complexity is incredible!

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As long as you’re not making an argument from incredulity I agree!

:smiley:

No actually I just can’t read. I didn’t even realize it didn’t say ‘irreducible’ until you said something.

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I can read, but what I read isn’t what was written! Folks like you give me hope for this site. Thanks.

I don’t see why not. Can we think of the cell membrane itself as an immune system?

Bacteria has an immune system called CRISPR. It is very different from our immune system but intelligent researchers designed system using the bacteria immune system to make babies in China with altered genomes.

Write that column - I’ll read it! I love skiing. :slight_smile:

A post was merged into an existing topic: Mung and Swamidas (again)

If God created bodies and those bodies able to defend to survive, in a post fall world as YEC sees it, then prediction of immune systems being very alike, a little alike, would follow from a common blueprint.
So some creature, needing it that way, would easily adapt to a immune system like a unrelated creature.
The immune system is flexible but within boundaries.
Common design can explain everything in biology from origins creationism(s) would say.

Since humans have immunoglobulins and complement, would you expect the same proteins with the same exact sequences in the tunicates, being that they come from a common blueprint?

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Thank you? It actually would be fun to learn more about tunicate immunity.

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@T_aquaticus
Here’s my way of thinking. Every organism has problems to solve, and there can be more than one way to solve them, but one way may be the best. Immunity is something all organisms require. Bacteria have solved it several ways, mainly by recognizing foreign DNA (restriction enzymes and CRISPER) One is trainable, the other innate. In vertebrates we see different mechanisms but the same principles.

It will be interesting to see how the tunicate system compares compares with humans. I don’t expect the same exact sequence or way of doing things, but it’s reasonable to expect some similarity if the the two are related by common descent. It need not be simpler in tunicates.

It would also be informative to look at colony defense in sea anemones.

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