Genetic Regulation of Mammalian Diversity

Behringer, Richard R.; Rasweiler, John J.; Chen, C. H.; Cretekos, Chris J.

doi:10.1101/sqb.2009.74.035

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Comparative studies of gene expression during limb development indicate that there are several key genetic alterations that account for these differences. In the bat, upregulation of Prx1 results in a lengthening of the distal forelimb (Cretekos et al, 2008; Behringer et al, 2009; Figure 6A) and a posterior shift in Hoxd13 expression reduces some skeletal elements. In the mouse, BMPs trigger apoptosis of interdigit membranes.…”

Section: What Factors Contribute To These Changes?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical plasticity within and across lifetimes: how can development inform us about phenotypic transformations?

Krubitzer

Dooley

2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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The neocortex is the part of the mammalian brain that is involved in perception, cognition, and volitional motor control. It is a highly dynamic structure that is dramatically altered within the lifetime of an animal and in different lineages throughout the course of evolution. These alterations account for the remarkable variations in behavior that species exhibit. Of particular interest is how these cortical phenotypes change within the lifetime of the individual and eventually evolve in species over time. Because we cannot study the evolution of the neocortex directly we use comparative analysis to appreciate the types of changes that have been made to the neocortex and the similarities that exist across taxa. Developmental studies inform us about how these phenotypic transitions may arise by alterations in developmental cascades or changes in the physical environment in which the brain develops. Both genes and the sensory environment contribute to aspects of the phenotype and similar features, such as the size of a cortical field, can be altered in a variety of ways. Although both genes and the laws of physics place constraints on the evolution of the neocortex, mammals have evolved a number of mechanisms that allow them to loosen these constraints and often alter the course of their own evolution.

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Section: What Factors Contribute To These Changes?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cortical plasticity within and across lifetimes: how can development inform us about phenotypic transformations?

Krubitzer

Dooley

2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…The family Vespertilionidae, which contains about one-third of all bat species and more than 100 species in the genus Myotis, ranks among the most species rich of all mammal families. Bats display many exceptional developmental and physiological characteristics, including the extreme elongation of digits to form webbed wings enabling powered flight, the capacity of several species to undergo extended hibernation, and extraordinary life spans for their size and metabolic rate (up to 34 years in the wild for Myotis), making them emerging models for research in limb development (2,3) and aging (4). Bats have also gained attention in biomedical research because a number of bat species have been identified as zoonotic reservoirs for some of the most sinister viruses infecting humans, such as rabies, Ebola, Marburg, Hendra, Nipah, and SARS-like viruses (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-Wide Characterization of Endogenous Retroviruses in the Bat Myotis lucifugus Reveals Recent and Diverse Infections

Zhuo

Rho

Feschotte

2013

J Virol

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bBats are increasingly recognized as reservoir species for a variety of zoonotic viruses that pose severe threats to human health. While many RNA viruses have been identified in bats, little is known about bat retroviruses. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) represent genomic fossils of past retroviral infections and, thus, can inform us on the diversity and history of retroviruses that have infected a species lineage. Here, we took advantage of the availability of a high-quality genome assembly for the little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, to systematically identify and analyze ERVs in this species. We mined an initial set of 362 potentially complete proviruses from the three main classes of ERVs, which were further resolved into 13 major families and 86 subfamilies by phylogenetic analysis. Consensus or representative sequences for each of the 86 subfamilies were then merged to the Repbase collection of known ERV/long terminal repeat (LTR) elements to annotate the retroviral complement of the bat genome. The results show that nearly 5% of the genome assembly is occupied by ERV-derived sequences, a quantity comparable to findings for other eutherian mammals. About one-fourth of these sequences belong to subfamilies newly identified in this study. Using two independent methods, intraelement LTR divergence and analysis of orthologous loci in two other bat species, we found that the vast majority of the potentially complete proviruses identified in M. lucifugus were integrated in the last ϳ25 million years. All three major ERV classes include recently integrated proviruses, suggesting that a wide diversity of retroviruses is still circulating in Myotis bats.

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“…In contrast, PRX1 proteins shared 99% identity and no evidence suggested this protein differed in its activity between the two taxa 41. Finding that expression patterns, but not coding sequences, of these genes were unique in bats suggests that evolutionary modifications in regulatory regions are responsible for the unique phenotype of the bat wing 28…”

Section: Sequence Identity and Regulation Of Limb Patterning Genesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The developing forelimbs of bats display altered expression patterns of several genes (i.e., Fgf8 , HoxD, Prx1 ) known to pattern the limb relative to other studied tetrapods (e.g., mouse). However, analyses have indicated that the coding sequences of these differentially expressed genes are highly conserved in bats, humans, and mice 28,34,39,41. In bats, Fgf8 expression in the AER displays a dorsoventral expansion in width compared to mice,39 and during the fetal stages Fgf8 displays a novel expression domain in the interdigital tissues 8,12.…”

Section: Sequence Identity and Regulation Of Limb Patterning Genesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The evolution and development of mammalian flight

Cooper

Cretekos

Sears

2012

WIREs Developmental Biology

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Mammals have evolved a stunning diversity of limb morphologies (e.g., wings, flippers, hands, and paws) that allowed access to a wide range of habitats. Over 50 million years ago, bats (Order Chiroptera) evolved a wing (composed of a thin membrane encasing long digits) and thereby achieved powered flight. Unfortunately, the fossil record currently lacks any transitional fossils between a rodent-like ancestor and a winged bat. To reconstruct how this important evolutionary transition occurred, researchers have begun to employ an evolutionary developmental approach. This approach has revealed some of the embryological and molecular changes that have contributed to the evolution of the bat wing. For example, bat and mouse forelimb morphologies are similar during earliest limb development. Despite this, some key signaling centers for limb development are already divergent in bat and mouse at these early stages. Bat and mouse limb development continues to diverge, such that at later stages many differences are apparent. For example, at these later stages bats redeploy expression of toolkit genes (i.e., Fgf, Shh, Bmp, Grem) in a novel expression domain to inhibit apoptosis of the interdigital tissues. When results are taken together, a broad picture of the developmental changes that drove the transition from a hand to a wing over 50 million years ago is beginning to take shape. Moreover, studies seem to suggest that small changes in gene regulation during organogenesis can generate large evolutionary changes in phenotype.

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Genetic Regulation of Mammalian Diversity

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

Cortical plasticity within and across lifetimes: how can development inform us about phenotypic transformations?

Cortical plasticity within and across lifetimes: how can development inform us about phenotypic transformations?

Genome-Wide Characterization of Endogenous Retroviruses in the Bat Myotis lucifugus Reveals Recent and Diverse Infections

The evolution and development of mammalian flight

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