通过位于犁鼻器中的信息素一型受体，哺乳动物可以感受来自物种内其他个体所传递的信息，从而引起种内不同成员之间社会和性的行为。信息素一型受体由V1R基因超家族编码的。过去几年中，张亚平研究组和施鹏研究组通过进化基因组学的方法对该基因超家族进行了系统地研究，发现了信息素受体基因家族是迄今为止哺乳动物基因家族基因数目差异倍数最大的基因家族；并提出动物适应环境可以反映在基因数目变异上的假说。
为了进一步探讨V1R基因家族的进化与动物环境和行为的关系，这两个研究组再度携手，通过整合微观的基因组数据和宏观的动物行为数据，对处于不同生态环境下及具有不同行为的哺乳动物V1R基因家族进行研究。第一作者王国栋博士等详细分析了32种陆生哺乳动物的V1R基因家族大小和两种环境因子：活动空间（Spatial Activity）和生物节律（Rhythm Activity）之间的关系。其中活动空间包括包括穴居行为（Nest-living Behavior）和开放居住行为（Open-living Behavior），生物节律包括夜行行为（Nocturnal）和昼行行为（Diurnal）。结果发现这两个环境因子与V1R基因家族大小有显着的相关性：1）与开放居住的哺乳动物相比，穴居哺乳动物拥有更多的V1R基因；2）与昼行哺乳动物相比，夜行哺乳动物拥有更多的V1R基因。进一步的分子进化分析表明，在夜行和穴居哺乳动物的V1R基因中发生的快速基因产生（Rapid Gene Birth）和氨基酸替代加速很可能是对夜行和狭窄环境的适应。信息素受体V1R基因家族的大小是一个很好的研究环境与动物基因组，特别是环境因子和感觉系统分子进化历史的指示器，值得进一步深入的研究。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
Genome Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/gbe/evq020
More functional V1R genes occur in nest-living and nocturnal terricolous mammals
Guodong Wang1, Peng Shi1,#, Zhouhai Zhu2 and Ya-ping Zhang1,2,#
1 State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China
2 Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resources, Yunnan University, Kunming, China
Size of the V1R gene repertoire may be a good indicator for examining the relationship between animal genomes and their environmental niche specialization, especially the relationship between ecological factors and the molecular evolutionary history of the sensory system. Recently, Young et al. (2009) concluded that no single ecological factor could explain the extreme variability of the V1R gene repertoire in mammalian genomes. In contrast, we found a significant positive correlation between the size and percentage of intact V1R genes in 32 species that represent the phylogenetic diversity of terricolous mammals and two ecological factors: spatial activity and rhythm activity. Nest-living species possessed a greater number of intact V1R genes than open-living species, and nocturnal terricolous mammals tended to possess more intact V1R genes than did diurnal species. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the evolutionary mechanisms underlying these observations likely resulted from the rapid gene birth and accelerated amino acid substitutions in nest-living and nocturnal mammals, likely a functional requirement for exploiting narrow, dark environments. Taken together, these results reveal how adaptation to divergent circadian rhythms and spatial activity were manifested at the genomic scale. Size of the V1R gene family might have indicated how this gene family adapts to ecological factors.
