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In all organisms, mechanisms of immunity respond to external biotic stress, and are therefore likely to be most subject to strong co-evolutionary pressures than almost any other biological mechanism. Some evidence for this view comes from data for the shaping of the immune system over the evolutionary past. Such a view also suggests that immune mechanisms may be ‘evolving’, or at least undergoing design alteration and diversification, much faster than many other biological mechanisms. In other words, that design alteration and diversification may be detectable in the present (or at least, in the very recent past!). Is there any evidence for this? And finally, what does all this tell us about what the trajectory of evolutionary change may be for immune mechanisms? Most interestingly for us as a self-absorbed species, what does all this tell us about how to tinker with our own immune system for some quite probably vague ‘future’ good? I will try and use evidence from a number of sources, including some of our own data, to discuss these kinds of questions, without providing any authoritative answers. |