Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Aging as a defense strategy against parasites

View ORCID ProfileRichard Y. Chin
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/143362
Richard Y. Chin
1Department of Epidemiology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Richard Y. Chin
  • For correspondence: richard.chin@ucsf.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The teleology of aging has been one of the more vexing and controversial question in biology. One potential evolutionary driver of programmed aging is selection pressure from parasites and other infectious organisms. While selection pressure from parasites and other infectious organisms have long been considered by many biologists to have led to the evolution of sexual reproduction, it has only rarely been considered as a potential driver for evolution of aging, a biological process that likely evolved contemporaneously with sexual reproduction. Here I describe stochastic simulations of host and parasite populations with senescence as an independent variable. The results show that populations with more rapid senescence bear lower parasite loads and oscillate more quickly through alternate phenotypes with differential resistance against parasites. I conclude that programmed aging and death may promote host evasion of parasites in a co-evolutionary competition against parasites.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted July 06, 2017.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Aging as a defense strategy against parasites
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Aging as a defense strategy against parasites
Richard Y. Chin
bioRxiv 143362; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/143362
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Aging as a defense strategy against parasites
Richard Y. Chin
bioRxiv 143362; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/143362

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4235)
  • Biochemistry (9136)
  • Bioengineering (6784)
  • Bioinformatics (24001)
  • Biophysics (12129)
  • Cancer Biology (9534)
  • Cell Biology (13778)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7636)
  • Ecology (11702)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15513)
  • Genetics (10644)
  • Genomics (14326)
  • Immunology (9483)
  • Microbiology (22839)
  • Molecular Biology (9090)
  • Neuroscience (48995)
  • Paleontology (355)
  • Pathology (1482)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2570)
  • Physiology (3846)
  • Plant Biology (8331)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1471)
  • Synthetic Biology (2296)
  • Systems Biology (6192)
  • Zoology (1301)