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The left-sided aortic arch in humans, viewed as the end-result of natural selection during vertebrate evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2011

Alexander J. Muster*
Affiliation:
Children's Memorial Hospital, Divisions of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Il, USA
Rachid F. Idriss
Affiliation:
Children's Memorial Hospital, Divisions of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Il, USA
Carl L. Backer
Affiliation:
Children's Memorial Hospital, Divisions of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Il, USA
*
Corresponding author: Alexander J. Muster, MD, Children's Memorial Hospital, 2300 Children's Plaza, Chicago, Il, USA. Tel: 312-329-1497; Fax 312-329-1572; e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

At some point during vertebrate evolution from species dwelling in water to living on land, the ancestral double or right aortic arches became single and left-sided in mammals, including humans, as the result of synchronous developments in cardiovascular and respiratory embryogenesis. Since left-sided aortic arches are unique to mammals, hemodynamics related to the placenta, specifically the requirement for a large arterial duct connecting to the descending aorta, may have led to switching from the right-sided to the left-sided arch. Additionally, development of a trilobar right lung and its bronchial tree, also unique to mammalian evolution, restricted the space above the high eparterial bronchus to a single large vessel. Consequently, mammals that mutated to the left-sided aortic arch avoided respiratory, digestive or circulatory problems that are often associated with an isolated right-sided aortic arch – something which could be considered a successful mistake. Due to natural selection, and survival of the fittest, the left-sided arch became the norm in mammals.

In congenital cardiac malformations where a large arterial duct is not mandatory in fetal life, as in Fallot's tetralogy or common arterial trunk, a right-sided aortic arch continues to occur, perhaps as an atavistic reversion to the anatomy seen in ancestral vertebrates.

Type
Developmental Hypothesis
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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