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Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage
BACKGROUND: Hair represents an evolutionary innovation that appeared early on mammalian evolutionary history, and presumably contributed significantly to the rapid radiation of the group. An interesting event in hair evolution has been its secondary loss in some mammalian groups, such as cetaceans,...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |
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author | Nery, Mariana F Arroyo, José Ignacio Opazo, Juan C |
author_facet | Nery, Mariana F Arroyo, José Ignacio Opazo, Juan C |
author_sort | Nery, Mariana F |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Hair represents an evolutionary innovation that appeared early on mammalian evolutionary history, and presumably contributed significantly to the rapid radiation of the group. An interesting event in hair evolution has been its secondary loss in some mammalian groups, such as cetaceans, whose hairless phenotype appears to be an adaptive response to better meet the environmental conditions. To determine whether different repertoire of keratin genes among mammals can potentially explain the phenotypic hair features of different lineages, we characterized the type I and II clusters of alpha keratins from eight mammalian species, including the hairless dolphin and minke whale representing the order Cetacea. RESULTS: We combined the available genomic information with phylogenetic analysis to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the evolutionary patterns of keratin gene clusters. We found that both type I and II gene clusters are fairly conserved among the terrestrial mammals included in this study, with lineage specific gene duplication and gene loss. Nevertheless, there is also evidence for an increased rate of pseudogenization in the cetacean lineage when compared to their terrestrial relatives, especially among the hair type keratins. CONCLUSIONS: Here we present a comprehensive characterization of alpha-keratin genes among mammals and elucidate the mechanisms involved in the evolution of this gene family. We identified lineage-specific gene duplications and gene loss among the Laurasiatherian and Euarchontoglires species included in the study. Interestingly, cetaceans present an increased loss of hair-type keratin genes when compared to other terrestrial mammals. As suggested by the ‘less-is-more’ hypothesis, we do not rule out the possibility that the gene loss of hair-type keratin genes in these species might be associated to the hairless phenotype and could have been adaptive in response to new selective pressures imposed by the colonization of a new habitat. Our study provides support for the idea that pseudogenes are not simply ‘genomic fossils’ but instead have adaptive roles during the evolutionary process. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-869) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4195889 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41958892014-10-15 Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage Nery, Mariana F Arroyo, José Ignacio Opazo, Juan C BMC Genomics Research Article BACKGROUND: Hair represents an evolutionary innovation that appeared early on mammalian evolutionary history, and presumably contributed significantly to the rapid radiation of the group. An interesting event in hair evolution has been its secondary loss in some mammalian groups, such as cetaceans, whose hairless phenotype appears to be an adaptive response to better meet the environmental conditions. To determine whether different repertoire of keratin genes among mammals can potentially explain the phenotypic hair features of different lineages, we characterized the type I and II clusters of alpha keratins from eight mammalian species, including the hairless dolphin and minke whale representing the order Cetacea. RESULTS: We combined the available genomic information with phylogenetic analysis to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the evolutionary patterns of keratin gene clusters. We found that both type I and II gene clusters are fairly conserved among the terrestrial mammals included in this study, with lineage specific gene duplication and gene loss. Nevertheless, there is also evidence for an increased rate of pseudogenization in the cetacean lineage when compared to their terrestrial relatives, especially among the hair type keratins. CONCLUSIONS: Here we present a comprehensive characterization of alpha-keratin genes among mammals and elucidate the mechanisms involved in the evolution of this gene family. We identified lineage-specific gene duplications and gene loss among the Laurasiatherian and Euarchontoglires species included in the study. Interestingly, cetaceans present an increased loss of hair-type keratin genes when compared to other terrestrial mammals. As suggested by the ‘less-is-more’ hypothesis, we do not rule out the possibility that the gene loss of hair-type keratin genes in these species might be associated to the hairless phenotype and could have been adaptive in response to new selective pressures imposed by the colonization of a new habitat. Our study provides support for the idea that pseudogenes are not simply ‘genomic fossils’ but instead have adaptive roles during the evolutionary process. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-869) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2014-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4195889/ /pubmed/25287022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 Text en © Nery et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Nery, Mariana F Arroyo, José Ignacio Opazo, Juan C Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title | Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title_full | Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title_fullStr | Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title_full_unstemmed | Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title_short | Increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
title_sort | increased rate of hair keratin gene loss in the cetacean lineage |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195889/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-15-869 |
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