2025/07/31 by Abir U. Igamberdiev
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Origins and Evolution of Life #Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms #Protist diversity and phylogeny
paper · doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2025.105546
openalex publication_date 2025/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The expansion of the set of biological codes associated with the appearance and complexification of eukaryotic cells (eukaryogenesis) and the evolution of multicellularity is based on the development of higher codes operating over the genetic system. In the course of evolution, the perception-action functional cycles described by Jakob von Uexküll become complemented by the secondary meta-cycles, which perceive the work of the primary cycles, and finally by tertiary cycles of meta-reflexivity, which perceive and evaluate the previous activity of the secondary functional cycles and generate a new field of meanings associated with conscious experience. The development of secondary and tertiary cycles forms the basis of higher-level codes operating over the genetic system and resulting in the evolutionary separation between unikonts and bikonts, in the divergence between protostomes and deuterostomes, in all events of cellular differentiation manifested as differentiation trees, and finally in the appearance of consciousness. The expansion of codes associated with the rise of eukaryotic organelles and with the cytoskeleton rearrangements in the ontogenesis of multicellular organisms determines the course of the evolutionary process toward complexification. The internally controlled recombination process, in particular, in the course of meiotic cell division and ontogenetic differentiation, becomes the driving factor of progressive evolution. It corresponds to the growing role of the epigenome and epigenetic regulation in the complexification of biological organization. It is concluded that the evolutionary process unfolds as a propagating non-deducible construction following the generation of functional redundancy, which is achieved through gene duplication, symbiosis, and cell-cell interactions, and becomes an important precondition for the appearance of new evolutionary acquisitions.