An integrative view of dynamic genomic elements influencing human brain evolution and individual neurodevelopment

An increasing number of reports of rearranged and aneuploid chromosomes in brain cells suggest an unexpected link between developmental chromosomal instability and brain genome diversity. Unstable chromosomal fragile sites (FS), endogenously or exogenously induced by replicative stressors, participate in genetic rearrangement and may be key features of epigenetically modified neuroplasticity. Certain common chromosomal FS are known to function as signals for RAG complex targets. Recombinase activation gene RAG-1 directed V(D)J recombination affecting specific recognition sequences allows the immune system to encode memories of a vast array of antigens. The finding that RAG-1 is transcribed in the central nervous system raised the consideration that immunoglobulin-like somatic DNA recombination could be involved in recognition and memory processes in brain development and function. Cognitive stress induced somatic hypermutation in neurons, similar to what happens after antigenic challenge in lymphocytes, could underly a massive increase in the synthesis of novel macromolecules to function as coded information bits which get selected for memory storage. This process may involve mobile element activation, which may also play a role in recombinational repair. As a source of tested, successful new open reading frames, somatic hypermutation may confer a selective advantage if somatically acquired information is fed back to germline V gene arrays and the human brain could have adopted a similar process to manage the information captured in rearranged sequences. In neuroevolution and individual brain development, germline information could thus represent a crucial component. The brain itself may, from an evolutionary genetic point of view, represent nothing more than a highly specialized and individually diversified information accrual and memory system to increase the overall phenotypically validated information content of the immortal germline. In the evolution of rapid evolvability, exceeding the narrow margins within which genetic instability is useful, would be expected to be associated with penalties in terms of neuropathology and malignancy risk. The utilisation of genetic instability to obtain diversification under stress is an ancient principle, but may have reached unprecedented levels in humans, which, in turn, fed back to creation of more unstable environments. Since increased genomic instability is likely to have been introduced to the genomes of other life forms by some of the extremely genotoxic environments created by H sapiens, a better understanding of the implications of borderline genomic instability may be an important priority to ensure long term biological survival, including that of our own species.