Ottaviani Enzo, Malagoli Davide, Capri Miriam, Franceschi Claudio
Department of Animal Biology, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Bioessays. 2008 Sep;30(9):868-74. doi: 10.1002/bies.20801.
Ecological Immunology assumes that immunological defenses must be minimized in terms of cost (energy expenditure). To reach this goal, a complex and still largely unexplored strategy has evolved to assure survival. From invertebrates to vertebrates, an integrated immune-neuroendocrine response appears to be crucial for the hierarchical redistribution of resources within the body according to the specific ecological demands. Thus, on the basis of experimental data on the intimate relationship between stress and immune responses that has been maintained during evolution, we argue that a broader perspective based on the integration of immune and neuroendocrine responses should be adopted to describe the comprehensive strategy that the body utilizes to adapt to dynamic environmental conditions. We discuss the hypothesis that a bow-tie architecture might be suitable to describe the variety of immune-neuroendocrine inputs that continuously target cells and organs while, at the same time, fulfilling the basic requirement of minimizing the cost of immune-neuroendocrine responses. Bow-tie architectures are able to convert a variety of stimuli (fan in) into a wide range of fine-tuned responses (fan out) by passing through the integrating activity of a core (knot) constituted by a limited number of elements. Finally, we argue that the ecologically negotiated immune-neuroendocrine strategies may have deleterious effects in the post-reproductive period of life when, at least in humans, chronic, low-grade, systemic inflammation develops, in accordance with the antagonistic pleiotropy theory of aging.
生态免疫学认为，免疫防御必须在成本（能量消耗）方面降至最低。为实现这一目标，一种复杂且在很大程度上仍未被探索的策略已经演化出来以确保生存。从无脊椎动物到脊椎动物，一种整合的免疫 - 神经内分泌反应对于根据特定生态需求在体内进行资源的分层重新分配似乎至关重要。因此，基于在进化过程中一直保持的压力与免疫反应之间密切关系的实验数据，我们认为应该采用一种基于免疫和神经内分泌反应整合的更广阔视角，来描述身体用于适应动态环境条件的综合策略。我们讨论了一种假说，即蝴蝶结结构可能适合描述各种持续靶向细胞和器官的免疫 - 神经内分泌输入，同时满足将免疫 - 神经内分泌反应成本降至最低的基本要求。蝴蝶结结构能够通过由有限数量元素构成的核心（节点）的整合活动，将各种刺激（扇入）转化为广泛的微调反应（扇出）。最后，我们认为，根据衰老的拮抗多效性理论，在生命的生殖后期，至少在人类中，当慢性、低度全身性炎症发展时，通过生态协商的免疫 - 神经内分泌策略可能会产生有害影响。
