Departamento de Biologıa Celular, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 04510 Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico.
J Biosci. 2021;46.
Evolutionary Cell Biology (ECB) has gained increasing attention in the last decades. Here we explore whether ECB is truly inter-disciplinary through the combination of cellular and evolutionary biology to offer evidence-based insights regarding the major questions of cell evolution. Since 2012, ECB asserts to utilize the increasing potential of high-throughput omics data () with morpho-functional () information, although challenges remain for a complete integration. For instance, the limited number of model organisms and cultivation techniques available excludes the majority of the extant diversity of cells from the scope of experimental inquiry. At the conceptual level, the simplification of evolutionary processes influenced by cultural views of evolution, such as adaptationism or Scala Naturae, challenges effective interdisciplinary work. Without a profound understanding of evolutionary theory and an integrative view of cell biology, the formulation of questions and experiments properly addressing evolution and diversification of cell complexities can become misleading. In 2009, we advanced the discovery of a nucleolus in the flagellated unicellular eukaryote , and studied nucleolus diversity in other lineages via electron microscopy. Since then, studying evolutionary questions at the cellular level became central to our research. We think that new methodological advances are re-shaping and strengthening the ECB research program and opening its door to experimental scientists. For example, the discovery of new archaea and protozoa and subsequent investigations that coupled approaches with approaches has proven that comprehensive morpho-functional information can be obtained that can only be understood through the merging of the cell biological and evolutionary discipline. Motivated by this, we here explore the history, the challenges, and the opportunities of ECB to motivate researchers to join this emergent field of research. We outline elements that contrast the current ECB discipline from previous integrative attempts. We conclude by elucidating the current disciplinary constraints of ECB and propose considerations towards successfully employing ECB to answer questions pertaining to the evolution of cellular complexity.
进化细胞生物学（ECB）在过去几十年中受到了越来越多的关注。在这里，我们通过结合细胞和进化生物学来探索 ECB 是否真正具有跨学科性，从而为细胞进化的主要问题提供基于证据的见解。自 2012 年以来，ECB 声称利用高通量组学数据（）和形态功能（）信息的日益增长的潜力，尽管完全整合仍然存在挑战。例如，可用的模型生物和培养技术的数量有限，将大多数现存细胞多样性排除在实验研究的范围之外。在概念层面上，受到文化进化观点（如适应主义或 Scala Naturae）影响的进化过程的简化，挑战了有效的跨学科工作。没有对进化理论的深刻理解和对细胞生物学的综合观点，就无法正确提出问题和进行实验，以适当解决细胞复杂性的进化和多样化问题。2009 年，我们在鞭毛单细胞真核生物中发现了核仁，并通过电子显微镜研究了其他谱系中的核仁多样性。从那时起，在细胞水平上研究进化问题成为我们研究的核心。我们认为，新的方法学进展正在重塑和加强 ECB 研究计划，并为实验科学家打开了大门。例如，新古菌和原生动物的发现，以及随后将方法与方法相结合的研究证明，可以获得全面的形态功能信息，而这些信息只能通过细胞生物学和进化学科的融合来理解。受此启发，我们在这里探讨了 ECB 的历史、挑战和机遇，以激励研究人员加入这一新兴研究领域。我们概述了与当前 ECB 学科形成对比的要素，并对当前 ECB 学科的限制进行了总结，提出了成功利用 ECB 回答与细胞复杂性进化相关问题的注意事项。
