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Immunodiffusion Systematics of the Primates I. the Catarrhini

1971; Oxford University Press; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/sysbio/20.1.19

1076-836X

M. Goodman, Gary Moore,

T-cell and B-cell Immunology

Immunodiffusion Systematics of the Primates. I. The Catarrhini. Syst. Zool., 20:19–62.—The theory is developed that the antigenic distance between two lineages of organisms (i.e., average number of non-matching antigenic sites between proteins produced by homologous genes in the separate evolving lines) becomes larger the longer the two have been without a common ancestor. A set theoretical analysis of protein antigen comparisons between contemporary species in trefoil Ouchterlony plates shows that from networks of these immunodiffusion comparisons, developed by antisera to an homologous species and comparing homologous to heterologous and heterologous to heterologous species, the antigenic distances of the homologous to the various heterologous species in the comparison series can be calculated. Computer procedures are described for first estimating these taxonomic distance tables for a species collection with a number of homologuos species in it (i.e., species against which antisera were produced and used to gather Ouchterlony data) and for then generating from the antigenic distance measurements a cladogenetic tree of the species in the collection. On applying this set theory, computer approach to a large mass of Ouchterlony data gathered with monkey, rabbit, and chicken antisera to proteins of various catarrhine species, it is shown that the catarrhine primates are a monophyletic group which subdivide in accordance with the established taxonomic scheme into Cercopithecoidea and Hominoidea. Also the cercopithecoids further subdivide as traditionally represented into Colobinae and Cercopithecinae. However within the Hominoidea the classical Pongidae is found to be polyphyletic. A cladistic classification, based on immunodiffusion systematics, reduces Pongidae to the subfamily Ponginae, containing Pongo as its only living genus; Ponginae is placed in the Hominidae alongside of Homininae, the latter containing Pan, Homo, and Gorilla. The subfamily Hylobatinae containing Symphalangus and Hylobates belongs to Hylobatidae as the only other family of extant Hominoidea.