New Insights on the Evolution of the Sweet Taste Receptor of Primates Adapted to Harsh Environments

Abstract

Taste perception is an essential function that provides valuable dietary and sensory information, which is crucial for the survival of animals. Studies into the evolution of the sweet taste receptor gene (TAS1R2) are scarce, especially for Bornean endemic primates such as Nasalis larvatus (proboscis monkey), Pongo pygmaeus (Bornean orangutan), and Hylobates muelleri (Muller’s Bornean gibbon). Primates are the perfect taxa to study as they are diverse dietary feeders, comprising specialist folivores, frugivores, gummivores, herbivores, and omnivores. We constructed phylogenetic trees of the TAS1R2 gene for 20 species of anthropoid primates using four different methods (neighbor-joining, maximum parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian) and also established the time divergence of the phylogeny. The phylogeny successfully separated the primates into their taxonomic groups as well as by their dietary preferences. Of note, the reviewed time of divergence estimation for the primate speciation pattern in this study was more recent than the previously published estimates. It is believed that this difference may be due to environmental changes, such as food scarcity and climate change, during the late Miocene epoch, which forced primates to change their dietary preferences. These findings provide a starting point for further investigation.

Human amniotic membrane stem cells’ conditioned medium has better support for in‐vitro production of bovine embryos than FBS

“…In our study, the expression of OCT4 in 5% CM and co‐culture groups was higher than control ( p < .5) while, no significant difference was observed between treatment groups (Figure 3). The results of our study were consistent with the results of some studies (Kim et al., 2011; Sakurai et al., 2016; Tamrin et al., 2020). In pre‐implantation bovine embryos OCT4 and CDX2 are essential for early embryonic development and their expression is involved in the differentiation of ICM and TE lineage in the embryos (Sakurai et al., 2016).…”

“…It has been suggested that it has a potential role in placental development and the maternal‐foetal crosstalk and its expression is a sign of high quality embryo. Its expression was higher in blastocysts of 5% CM group that control group (Figure 3), which was consistent with some reports (El‐Sayed et al., 2006; Li et al., 2016; Tamrin et al., 2020). Study in bovine embryos has shown that blastocysts with higher expression of pregnancy‐related genes ( PLAC8 ) are more likely to give birth to calves (El‐Sayed et al., 2006).…”

“…OCT4 plays essential roles in the early embryo development and is required for the proliferation and differentiation of undifferentiated cells, including ICM and TE. Its mRNA and its protein have been detected in embryonic blastomeres of pre‐implantation embryos, ICM of blastocysts, epiblasts and primary stem cells (Kirchhof et al., 2000; Tamrin et al., 2020). In our study, the expression of OCT4 in 5% CM and co‐culture groups was higher than control ( p < .5) while, no significant difference was observed between treatment groups (Figure 3).…”