3

Many sci fi movies produce interesting ideas and technologies that we seem to be able to realize in real life at some point. "Lucy" was not one of those movies.

But Morgan Freeman's speech in the movie on cell evolution did interest me.

The speech claimed that cells in harsher environments evolve towards immortality, while cells in favorable environments evolve toward reproduction.

Is this idea accurate?

CuriousWebDeveloper
  • 239
  • 2
  • 5
  • 3
    Just for the pleasure to hear Morgan Freeman's arguments, can you please link the video of his speech? – Remi.b Jan 19 '15 at 22:18
  • 2
    How would you compare survival to immortality? There are many examples of adaptation for survival, but immortality is a stretch. – anongoodnurse Jan 19 '15 at 22:19
  • @Remi.b I would like to; I welcome someone to find this clip - It doesn't seem to live on Youtube yet. – CuriousWebDeveloper Jan 19 '15 at 22:22
  • 1
    @anongoodnurse I think "immortality" isn't meant literally. It's a dramatization for increasing lifespan. – CuriousWebDeveloper Jan 19 '15 at 22:24
  • 1
    You may want to read a bit about the evolution of ageing. This post for example is very interesting (it won't necessarily answer your question though). – Remi.b Jan 19 '15 at 22:52
  • In Nick Lane's book Life Ascending he talks about caloric restriction resulting in more mitochondria in cells and less mitochondria leak. This is a stress response that may inhibit cell degradation (death). I'm sorry I don't remember who the researchers were who discovered this or theorized on it, but I thought it might be germane to this question. – RMH Jan 23 '15 at 13:25
  • It wouldn't be good to replace reproduction with immortality even if it were possible. Let's assume some animal was immortal, could not die of old age or disease. There would still be accidents, injuries, starvation, or predators to worry about, so they would still have to reproduce to keep the species going. – user137 Jan 23 '15 at 14:58
  • "All the cells that make up the worm or human has only two options ... Immortality ... Or reproduction. If its habitat is not quite favorable ... The cell chooses immortality ... That is to say, self-sufficiency, self ... But if the habitat is favorable ... This is the reproduction is selected. And when they die the essential data is passed to the following cells ... Who in turn pass on these cells ... The knowledge, knowledge is devised through time." http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=lucy I found the script, no video though. – Adam Phelps Jan 24 '15 at 08:11
  • It's absolutely true what Morgan Freeman said in Lucy........ ....immortality is possible in organisms. The organism which might interest you is: Turritopsis dohrnii - a jelly fish Harsh environmental conditions favour TRANSDIFFERENCIATION....a special type of METAPLASIA. –  Aug 08 '15 at 20:01

1 Answers1

3

You'll see that in many cases, when any sort of cell enters a zone of intolerance or zone of physical stress, the replication machinery gets put on the backburner (and thus replication). Expression of stress-response proteins like heat shock proteins is increased as a result (1). If a cell isn't within acceptable parameter to undergo division at G1 or G2 (anoxic environment, etc.), you'll find mechanisms like G0 phase or sporulation are preferred until the environment returns to something less stressful (2). I wouldn't say cells would rather be immortal, per se, but longevity or even apoptosis/entosis/etc. would be preferable to replication if nothing is going right (3, 4).

To be clear, when we're talking about evolution that's a tough one. Sure, some sort of stress-response transient signal could induce some lasting cell memory selecting toward a specific function. I simply don't have the data to quote you in that aspect, however.

  1. Biology of the heat shock response and protein chaperones: budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) as a model system.

  2. Slonczewski, J., & Foster, J. (2011). Microbiology: An evolving science (2nd ed., p. 143). New York: W.W. Norton.

  3. DNA damage-induced apoptosis

  4. Cellular Stress Responses: Cell Survival and Cell Death

As a footnote, while replication does occur in sporulation, the replicated chromosome is destroyed in the process of forming the actual spore.

CKM
  • 8,109
  • 17
  • 28