近日，中科院昆明动物研究所张亚平院士课题组从全基因组的角度，揭示了蝙蝠、海豚在飞行和游泳的新运动能力起源过程中的分子机制。相关研究成果日前发表于《科学公共图书馆—综合》，并受到审稿人的好评。
据悉，哺乳动物大多在陆地上运动，如奔跑或行走，但蝙蝠和海豚是例外。它们分别进化出了新的运动方式，蝙蝠进化出飞行能力，海豚进化出了水里游泳能力。由于运动方式的变化涉及到骨骼、肌肉、能量代谢等一系列非常复杂的变化，因此，科研人员致力找出海豚和蝙蝠进化出新的运动方式的分子机制。
科研人员对2种蝙蝠和1种海豚的基因组进行了全基因组扫描分析，发现蝙蝠和海豚的能量代谢相关基因比其他陆生动物受到更高比例的正选择。同时，它们趋同进化的基因也富集于能量代谢、肌肉、心脏等相关基因。(生物谷Bioon.com)
10.1371/journal.pone.0046455
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Genome-Wide Scan for Bats and Dolphin to Detect Their Genetic Basis for New Locomotive Styles
Yong-Yi Shen1#*, Wei-Ping Zhou1,2#, Tai-Cheng Zhou3, Yan-Ni Zeng1,4, Gui-Mei Li1, David M. Irwin1,5,6, Ya-Ping Zhang1,4*
For most mammals, running is their major locomotive style, however, cetaceans and bats are two mammalian groups that have independently developed new locomotive styles (swimming and flying) from their terrestrial ancestors. In this study, we used a genome-wide comparative analysis in an attempt to identify the selective imprint of the development of new locomotive styles by cetaceans and bats to adapt to their new ecological niches. We found that an elevated proportion of mitochondrion-associated genes show evidence of adaptive evolution in cetaceans and on the common ancestral lineage leading to bats, compared to other terrestrial mammals. This result is consistent with the fact that during the independent developments of swimming and flying in these two groups, the changes of energy metabolism ratios would be among the most important factors to overcome elevated energy demands. Furthermore, genes that show evidence of sequence convergence or parallel evolution in these two lineages were overrepresented in the categories of energy metabolism, muscle contraction, heart, and glucose metabolism, genes that perform functions which are essential for locomotion. In conclusion, our analyses showed that on the dolphin and bat lineages, genes associated with locomotion not only both show a greater propensity to adaptively evolve, but also show evidence of sequence convergence, which likely reflects a response to a common requirement during their development of these two drastic locomotive styles.
