Stewart J
Unité d'Immunobiologie, CNRS URA 359, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Immunol Today. 1992 Oct;13(10):396-9; discussion 399-400. doi: 10.1016/0167-5699(92)90088-O.
The complex interactions between B and T cells in response to external antigens are the major focus of contemporary immunology. Here, John Stewart argues that they may be relatively late evolutionary developments, due to the redeployment of a system invented for other reasons. He suggests that the system of variable region molecules (VRM) arose, at the time of the first vertebrates, by an endogenous, self-organizing process; this primordial VRM system instituted a molecular ecology, a function so important that from then on no vertebrate has been able to do without it.
B细胞和T细胞对外源抗原的复杂相互作用是当代免疫学的主要研究重点。在此，约翰·斯图尔特认为，由于为其他目的而发明的系统被重新部署，它们可能是相对较晚出现的进化产物。他提出，可变区分子（VRM）系统在第一批脊椎动物出现时，通过内源性的自组织过程产生；这个原始的VRM系统建立了一种分子生态，其功能如此重要，以至于从那时起，没有任何脊椎动物能够离开它而生存。
