Article
Zoology
Amanda D. Melin, Joseph D. Orkin, Mareike C. Janiak, Alejandro Valenzuela, Lukas Kuderna, Frank Marrone, Hasinala Ramangason, Julie E. Horvath, Christian Roos, Andrew C. Kitchener, Chiea Chuen Khor, Weng Khong Lim, Jessica G. H. Lee, Patrick Tan, Govindhaswamy Umapathy, Muthuswamy Raveendran, R. Alan Harris, Ivo Gut, Marta Gut, Esther Lizano, Tilo Nadler, Dietmar Zinner, Minh D. Le, Sivakumara Manu, Clement J. Rabarivola, Alphonse Zaramody, Nicole Andriaholinirina, Steig E. Johnson, Erich D. Jarvis, Olivier Fedrigo, Dongdong Wu, Guojie Zhang, Kyle Kai-How Farh, Jeffrey Rogers, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Arcadi Navarro, David Juan, Paramjit S. Arora, James P. Higham
Summary: The global pandemic of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 is not only a threat to human health, but also poses potential risks to nonhuman primates, especially lemurs. Conservation efforts should focus on understanding and limiting the exposure of lemurs to SARS-CoV-2, as some species are at high risk, including the endangered aye-aye.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Joana Damas, Marco Corbo, Jaebum Kim, Jason Turner-Maier, Marta Farre, Denis M. Larkin, Oliver A. Ryder, Cynthia Steiner, Marlys L. Houck, Shaune Hall, Lily Shiue, Stephen Thomas, Thomas Swale, Mark Daly, Jonas Korlach, Marcela Uliano-Silva, Camila J. Mazzoni, Bruce W. Birren, Diane P. Genereux, Jeremy Johnson, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Elinor K. Karlsson, Martin T. Nweeia, Rebecca N. Johnson, Harris A. Tewin
Summary: Decrypting the rearrangements that drive mammalian chromosome evolution is crucial for understanding speciation, adaptation, and disease susceptibility. By computationally reconstructing ancestral karyotypes and syntenic relationships, the study reveals the chromosome structure and evolutionary history of the mammalian ancestors.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Larisa S. Biltueva, Nadezhda V. Vorobieva, Natalya A. Lemskya, Polina L. Perelman, Vladimir A. Trifonov, Victor V. Panov, Alexey V. Abramov, Shin-ichiro Kawada, Natalya A. Serdukova, Alexandr S. Graphodatsky
Summary: Researchers have described the karyotype of the small-toothed mole from Vietnam for the first time and identified cytogenetic signatures for this species and other related moles. They have also proposed a possible ancestral karyotype and found that pericentric inversions and heterochromatin amplifications are the most occurring types of chromosomal rearrangements in moles.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Afif Elghraoui, Siavash Mirarab, Krister M. Swenson, Faramarz Valafar
Summary: In this study, 94 reference quality genomes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) isolates were used to evaluate methods for detecting homology, obtaining syntenic blocks, and inferring phylogenies. The choice of methods and parameters were found to impact the results, and the method for inferring homology was found to be more important than the tree inference method. The study also found that a rearrangement tree based on blocks from the Cactus whole-genome aligner was compatible with the substitution-based tree, enabling the creation of a high-resolution supertree.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Katerina V. Tishakova, Dmitry Yu. Prokopov, Guzel I. Davletshina, Alexander V. Rumyantsev, Patricia C. M. O'Brien, Malcolm A. Ferguson-Smith, Massimo Giovannotti, Artem P. Lisachov, Vladimir A. Trifonov
Summary: In this study, chromosome-specific DNA libraries of C. calyptratus were obtained through chromosome flow sorting, and these libraries were compared with the genomes of three other squamate reptiles. The ancestral syntenic regions in the C. calyptratus chromosomes were identified. PCR-assisted mapping indicated that chromosome 5 may be the sex chromosome pair in C. calyptratus. The comparative chromosome map generated in this study can be used as the basis for future genome assembly and evolutionary studies of chameleons.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Zhuang Meng, Qinnan Wang, Haris Khurshid, Ghulam Raza, Jinlei Han, Baohua Wang, Kai Wang
Summary: The genus Saccharum presents challenges in uncovering its genomic structure and evolution due to its high polyploidy and highly varied chromosome numbers. The study revealed uneven ploidy in some Saccharum spontaneum clones, suggesting hybridization events. Using chromosome painting FISH, unexpected interspecific recombination levels were found in sugarcane cultivars, indicating frequent chromosome exchange.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Jianying Sun, Dan Su, Rengang Ma, Lei Chen, Qinghe Cao, Zongyun Li, Yonghua Han
Summary: This study investigated the chromosome behavior of sweetpotato and its possible polyploid ancestral species. The results suggest that tetraploid I. tabascana is likely an autotetraploid, while hexaploid I. trifida is more likely an autohexaploid. Sweetpotato may be a segmental allohexaploid.
Article
Plant Sciences
Fan Yu, Xinwang Zhao, Jin Chai, Xueer Ding, Xueting Li, Yongji Huang, Xianhong Wang, Jiayun Wu, Muqing Zhang, Qinghui Yang, Zuhu Deng, Jiming Jiang
Summary: Karyotypes provide important cytogenetic information for understanding phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary origins in related eukaryotic species. Oligonucleotide-based chromosome painting has emerged as a powerful tool for cytogenetic studies, especially in plant species with a large number of chromosomes. By developing oligo-based chromosome painting probes for Saccharum officinarum and conducting comparative chromosome analysis among different species within the Saccharum complex, novel cytotypes and chromosome rearrangements were discovered, shedding light on the evolution of these species.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Jia-Qi Chen, Qingyu Zhang, Dandan Yu, Rui Bi, Yuhua Ma, Yijiang Li, Long-Bao Lv, Yong-Gang Yao
Summary: This study has identified a suitable milk substitute for artificial rearing of Chinese tree shrew pups, which has shown no obvious adverse effects on their survival, health, and reproductive performance compared to those reared by their mothers. This finding is of great importance in increasing the availability of Chinese tree shrews in laboratory research.
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Matthew H. Van Dam, Analyn Anzano Cabras, James B. Henderson, Andrew J. Rominger, Cynthia Perez Estrada, Arina D. Omer, Olga Dudchenko, Erez Lieberman Aiden, Athena W. Lam
Summary: This study examines patterns of genomic architecture across insects and reveals significant differences in gene order decay rates among different insect orders. It demonstrates that genes can stay localized on chromosomes for hundreds of millions of years in beetles, while their order along chromosomes gets completely shuffled over time. Additionally, the study empirically shows that synteny decay rates differ significantly between insect orders, with Lepidoptera not being the sole driver of this pattern.
Article
Biology
Xue Li, Yuanji Li, Wenfei Song, Daohao Xie, Fangfang Zhu, Minghua Yang, Yahui Li
Summary: Tree shrews are more closely related to primate animals and Tssk genes are specifically expressed in the testis and/or sperm of tree shrews, suggesting potential biological functions in spermatogenesis. The Tssk recombinant proteins were successfully obtained in tree shrews using prokaryotic protein expression system, providing fundamental data on reproductive biology of this novel model animal.
COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY
(2021)
Article
Pathology
Annette Klein, Ute Radespiel, Felix Felmy, Tina Brezina, Malgorzata Ciurkiewicz, Jessica Schmitz, Jan Hinrich Braesen, Reinhold Paul Linke, Sina Reinartz, Ottmar Distl, Andreas Beineke
Summary: A high prevalence of AA-amyloidosis was identified in a breeding colony of northern tree shrews, with amyloid deposits found in organs such as kidneys, intestines, skin, and lymph nodes. Captive tree shrews seem to have a general susceptibility to develop amyloidosis, with clinical and laboratory findings indicating renal dysfunction as a common issue.
VETERINARY PATHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Chengzhi Jiang, Xiaodan Liu, Zujun Yang, Guangrong Li
Summary: In this study, the researchers established the 42-chromosome karyotype of Elymus dahuricus using non-denaturing fluorescent in situ hybridization (ND-FISH) and Oligo-FISH painting methods. They also discovered a new type of intergenomic rearrangement between 2H and 5Y. Furthermore, the comparison of centromeric tandem repeats and immunostaining results suggested that centromere-associated sequences in H subgenomes were continuously changing during the process of polyploidization.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Vergiana dos Santos Paixao, Pablo Suarez, Willam Oliveira da Silva, Lena Geise, Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith, Patricia Caroline Mary O'Brien, Ana Cristina Mendes-Oliveira, Rogerio Vieira Rossi, Julio Cesar Pieczarka, Cleusa Yoshiko Nagamachi
Summary: Rhipidomys, a genus with 25 recognized species, exhibits complex chromosomal variations with pericentric inversions being a major cause of karyotypic divergence. Fluorescence in situ hybridization revealed both similarities and differences in the karyotypes of two Rhipidomys species. The chromosomal evolution in Rhipidomys was associated with translocations, centromeric repositioning, and pericentric inversions, highlighting the genomic diversification within this group.
Article
Immunology
Jing Wang, Qianqian Li, Qi Huang, Meng Lv, Pan Li, Jing Dai, Minjie Zhou, Jialu Xu, Faming Zhang, Jun Gao
Summary: This study revealed that long-term light stimulation can alter behaviors, composition of gut microbiota, and brain structure in tree shrews. Targeting microbiota shows promise as a treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders, including stress-related diseases.
FRONTIERS IN CELLULAR AND INFECTION MICROBIOLOGY
(2021)