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Why is there a gene for high cholesterol? In what kind of environment was high cholesterol beneficial?
by Dowwie 9y ago
Why is there a gene for high cholesterol? In what kind of environment was high cholesterol beneficial?
- maxerickson 9y agoIt can just be a mutation that doesn't prevent reproduction. The relatively low occurrence (1 in 500) points towards that.
- anvandare 9y agoNot all genes have to have a function, or even a beneficial one. DNA could be riddled with legacy (inactive) code. As long as there's not enough evolutionary pressure -its negative value doesn't pass a threshold- the code would be retained.
- Dowwie 9y agoI wonder what other dormant code exists that if toggled would trigger dramatic changes
- stochastic_monk 9y agoConsider an extremely high-dimensional feature space [not just genes, but transcripts/isoforms (differently diced-up versions of RNAs with different functions), hosts of active-but-not-transcribed-into-proteins RNAs, and dynamic regulation through interactions] which updates a reinforcement learning algorithm one epoch per generation (~20-30 years), and you'll see why it's far from optimized.
- liopleurodon 9y agowhat's the role of cholesterol in the human body?
- maxerickson 9y agoIt's a component of cellular membranes (so it is found everywhere) and many hormones.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 9y agoCells need to be able to control how much cholesterol they have (cholesterol, notably, makes up about 25% of the cell membrane). They can either synthesize it themselves, or import it from the blood. The system for importing cholesterol can't run continuously or else it might cram the cell full of cholesterol, so there needs to be a way of turning it off (or at least slowing it down) when levels are satisfactory. PCSK9, the gene that they targeted, does just that. So it's not a "gene for high cholesterol" per se - but if you delete it, cells will import more cholesterol, thus lowering the levels in the blood. I really don't know much about this system, but I imagine you'd have to combine this modification with a low-cholesterol diet or else it might have an adverse effect on the modified cells.
- arkades 9y agoGreat post. Just adding for additional color that PCSK9 inhibitors like evolocumab are a relatively new/hot thing in pharma right now, for treating high cholesterol. Coming out with the ability to absolutely wreck a competitor’s blockbuster drug with a gene edit is probably not entirely an innocent coincidence.
- xinyhn 9y ago6. After any surgery, your cholesterol soars. It also increases when you battle infections, are under a lot of stress, or have had a heart attack. Reason being, your body relies on cholesterol as a healing agent – to help create new cells whenever they’re needed. Exposure to environmental agents and toxins can also affect your cholesterol levels. 7. Toxic chemicals, free radicals, pathogens, trans-fats and other damaging agents you’re exposed to end up in your blood stream, where they damage the endothelium – the razor-thin lining of your blood vessels. When endothelial cells need to be repaired, your liver sends LDL to the site, and when the healing process concludes, HDL carries the spent LDL particles back to the liver to be removed from your body. https://heartmdinstitute.com/heart-health/facts-about-cholesterol/ https://heartmdinstitute.com/heart-health/facts-about-choles...
- posterboy 9y agohdl/ldl - high/low density lipoprotein