The Journal of Theoretical Fimpology. Volume 3, Issue 2: e20050615-3-2-16. September 2, 2015 (www.fimpology.com)
The Second Time of Combining Darwin with Pasteur for Their Theories: Beyond Questioning Human Fetus in Uterus—Sterile, or Not
Shu-dong Yin
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8661-6889
Cory H. E. R. & C. Inc., Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
In Fimpology, the human body has been understood as the 'niches' or 'habitats' of evolutionary microentities including cellular, subcellular and molecular entities.[1-4] In the recent reviews, bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses/phages, and extracellular vesicles as evolutionary background entities (EBEs) at the cellular and subcellular levels were revealed to normally exist in the human body.[3,4] The earliest source of hominal EBEs has be traced back to the prenatal period and accumulating evidences and facts uncovered in the studies on fetus and neonates during the past decades have supported the novel concept—"fetus isn't sterile", which challenges our traditional dogma that the human fetal growth and development was completed within a sterile environment, that during normal pregnancy, fetal respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, skin, vaginal tract and amniotic fluid were all sterile, and that the birth of a fetus was the switching point from sterile fetal respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, skin, and vaginal tract to being colonized by external microorganisms. Unfortunately, our existing theories in the life sciences cannot answer the question "when, how and why did the host-associated microorganism communities including fungi, bacteria, archaea, viruses, and protists occur in our bodies?" for which however, one of reasons may be lacking a critical unification between Darwin's evolution theory and Pasteur's Germ Theory. From the fimpological perspective, the late 1970s when bacterial evolutionary relationship with traditional biology was acknowledged was the first time to combine Darwin with Pasteur for their theories.[5] Today, while we recognize that Lamarck, Darwin and Wallace's evolution theories and Mendel's law of biological heredity, as well as Pasteur's Germ Theory are all movements of the symphony of evolution, one of the tasks we have to complete is to theoretically unite Darwinian's evolution theories with Pasteurian's viruses, fungi, protists and molecular prions for the second time, for which, the UPOEE model in Fimpology was proposed in 2013.[1] In this article, the following three novel concepts have been proposed from the fimpological perspective: (1) the growth and development of a fertilized egg, an embryo and a fetus is not an automatic solo process of host eukaryotic cell lineages, but the complex interactions occurred in different developmental stages between host eukaryotic cell lineages and their environmental microentities such as bacteria, fungi, viruses and extracellular vesicles at the cellular, subcellular and molecular levels; (2) There are two stages of non-host derived bacterial colonization experienced normally by human embryos, fetuses and infants. One is the primary or prenatal colonization occurred during the embryonic or prenatal period and the other is the secondary or postnatal colonization occurred during and after birth; and (3) I hypothesize further for the first time that the human embryo and fetus may release bacteria during normal gestation and these host-derived bacteria may be the unrecognized non-maternal source of bacteria in the amniotic cavity.