Randomness in living systems?

Question

The point of my question is not to talk about events that are uncontrolled by living organisms. My question is about controlled randomness, or I'd like to say adaptive random process. Process that are random because it was selected in order to be random.The first thing that pop in my mind when thinking of "adaptive random process" in biology is Fair Meiosis. **Do you have other examples of "adaptive random process"?** An individual might display a random behaviour in order to avoid that others to predict its future behaviour. Is there any evidence for such things? Do you know any other evidence on what I called "adaptive random process"?

Answer 1

Hey! That is a great question. While I don't have evidence of an individual displaying random behavior in order to avoid others to predict its future behavior, one adaptive random process is how antibodies are made.

It is called V(D)J recombination. Every B and T cell has the ability to produce every single antibody, but during their maturation process, a random combination of a V, a D, and a J section (or a V and J section for the light chain) occurs and they become specific to one gene sequence.

The way it works is that each cell has all the V, D and J segments. This allows for an enormous antibody repertoire; roughly 3×10¹¹ possible combinations. This repertoire would otherwise be very difficult to procure. To make it even more diverse, there are random sets of inserts and variations of ligation during the combination to increase randomization.

Hope this helps!