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Cross-scale applicability of the symmetry-breaking mechanism for transmitter–expressor division

Investigate whether the recurrent division of labor between information transmission and expression observed across eusocial colonies, multicellular organisms, ciliate nuclei, and bacterial colonies can be explained by the same multilevel-selection-driven symmetry-breaking mechanism proposed for molecular systems, and characterize how this mechanism differs from existing theories for germline–soma distinction and eusociality.

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Background

The authors document analogous transmitter–expressor divisions at multiple biological scales and propose a molecular-level evolutionary mechanism—spontaneous symmetry breaking driven by conflicting multilevel selection in stage-structured populations—that yields a gene–enzyme separation.

They explicitly ask whether this same mechanism can account for analogous divisions at higher levels and how it contrasts with established models for germline–soma evolution and eusociality.

References

Finally, we highlight several open questions that arise from reconceptualising the Central Dogma as a division of labour between information transmission and expression. Second, the division of labour between information transmission and expression evolved independently across vastly different biological scales. Can this recurrent pattern be explained by the same symmetry-breaking mechanism described above? How does this mechanism differ from those proposed for the evolution of the germline-soma distinction and eusociality?

— Generalising the Central Dogma as a cross-hierarchical principle of biology (2508.04085 - Takeuchi et al., 6 Aug 2025) in Section “Open questions”