Why leveraging sex differences in immune trade-offs may illuminate the evolution of senescence.

ABSTRACT: The immune system affects senescence (declines in probabilities of survival or reproduction with age), by shaping late age vulnerability to chronic inflammatory diseases and infections. It is also a dynamic interactive system that must balance competing demands across the life course. Thus, immune system function remains an important frontier in understanding the evolution of senescence.Here, we review our expanding mechanistic understanding of immune function over the life course, in the context of theoretical predictions from life-history evolution. We are especially interested in stage- and sex-dependent costs and benefits of investment in the immune system, given differential life-history priorities of the life stages and sexes.We introduce the costs likely to govern immune allocation

SUBMITTER: Metcalf CJE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7006808 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature