Scientists discover ancient single-celled ancestors still live on in your blood
Key takeaways
- Nearly every animal species, including humans, has blood cells.
- Scientists already understand a great deal about the makeup and function of blood cells in humans and mice thanks to advances in hematology and immunology.
- The team created a new analytical approach that compared gene expression patterns across many types of cells and animal species.
Why this matters: new research or scientific developments with potential real-world impact.
Nearly every animal species, including humans, has blood cells. But blood is not the same across the animal kingdom. Different species have evolved different types of blood and immune cells, reflecting millions of years of adaptation against infection and disease.
Scientists already understand a great deal about the makeup and function of blood cells in humans and mice thanks to advances in hematology and immunology. What has remained unclear is how these cells first appeared and evolved over time. To answer those questions, researchers at Kyoto University set out to trace the origins and diversification of blood cells across the animal world.
The team created a new analytical approach that compared gene expression patterns across many types of cells and animal species. Using this method, they built evolutionary family trees for blood cell lineages and estimated how these cells developed throughout animal evolution.