Article: Stanford Study of Sea Squirt Provides Clue to Human Immune System.

STANFORD, Calif. -- "You can eat your relatives but not your friends," could be the off-kilter credo of a tiny marine invertebrate called a sea squirt that can physically merge with, and parasitize, its own kin. The trigger for this unseemly behavior has now been traced to a single gene, isolated by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. That gene also points to a common origin with the vertebrate immune system, far back in animal evolution, potentially shedding light on the development of our own immune system.

The sea squirt with the questionable philosophy is Botryllus schlosseri, a colonial animal that looks deceptively like a small ...

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