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Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation

Eutherian mammals have characteristic lengths of gestation that are key for reproductive success, but relatively little is known about the processes that determine the timing of parturition, the process of birth, and how they are coordinated with fetal developmental programs. This issue remains one...

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Autores principales: Rokas, Antonis, Mesiano, Sam, Tamam, Ortal, LaBella, Abigail, Zhang, Ge, Muglia, Louis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33380346
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58343
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author Rokas, Antonis
Mesiano, Sam
Tamam, Ortal
LaBella, Abigail
Zhang, Ge
Muglia, Louis
author_facet Rokas, Antonis
Mesiano, Sam
Tamam, Ortal
LaBella, Abigail
Zhang, Ge
Muglia, Louis
author_sort Rokas, Antonis
collection PubMed
description Eutherian mammals have characteristic lengths of gestation that are key for reproductive success, but relatively little is known about the processes that determine the timing of parturition, the process of birth, and how they are coordinated with fetal developmental programs. This issue remains one of biology's great unsolved mysteries and has significant clinical relevance because preterm birth is the leading cause of infant and under 5 year old child mortality worldwide. Here, we consider the evolutionary influences and potential signaling mechanisms that maintain or end pregnancy in eutherian mammals and use this knowledge to formulate general theoretical evolutionary models. These models can be tested through evolutionary species comparisons, studies of experimental manipulation of gestation period and birth timing, and human clinical studies. Understanding how gestation time and parturition are determined will shed light on this fundamental biological process and improve human health through the development of therapies to prevent preterm birth.
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spelling pubmed-77751062021-01-04 Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation Rokas, Antonis Mesiano, Sam Tamam, Ortal LaBella, Abigail Zhang, Ge Muglia, Louis eLife Evolutionary Biology Eutherian mammals have characteristic lengths of gestation that are key for reproductive success, but relatively little is known about the processes that determine the timing of parturition, the process of birth, and how they are coordinated with fetal developmental programs. This issue remains one of biology's great unsolved mysteries and has significant clinical relevance because preterm birth is the leading cause of infant and under 5 year old child mortality worldwide. Here, we consider the evolutionary influences and potential signaling mechanisms that maintain or end pregnancy in eutherian mammals and use this knowledge to formulate general theoretical evolutionary models. These models can be tested through evolutionary species comparisons, studies of experimental manipulation of gestation period and birth timing, and human clinical studies. Understanding how gestation time and parturition are determined will shed light on this fundamental biological process and improve human health through the development of therapies to prevent preterm birth. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2020-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7775106/ /pubmed/33380346 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58343 Text en © 2020, Rokas et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Biology
Rokas, Antonis
Mesiano, Sam
Tamam, Ortal
LaBella, Abigail
Zhang, Ge
Muglia, Louis
Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title_full Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title_fullStr Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title_full_unstemmed Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title_short Developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
title_sort developing a theoretical evolutionary framework to solve the mystery of parturition initiation
topic Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7775106/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33380346
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58343
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