The Cheetah: One of Nature’s Great Survivors

The Cheetah: One of Nature’s Great Survivors

By chXout Team Comment Closed
The African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is the world’s fastest land mammal. It has numerous physiological adaptations that allow it to reach speeds over 100 km/hr including elongated legs, slim aerodynamic skull, enlarged adrenal glands, liver and heart, and semi-retractable claws that grip the earth. Modern cheetahs range across eastern and southern Africa, with a small population in Iran. But their numbers are declining and there are now less than 10,000 in the wild. This is a drop of 90 percent in the past 100 years. This decline in numbers is mostly due to loss of habitat, illegal trade by hunters, conflict with farmers and road accidents. They are considered highly endangered by wildlife authorities and governments. An international team of researchers led by Stephen O’Brien, of the Theodosius Dobzhansky Centre for Genome Bioinformatics at St.Petersburg State University, and including members of the Beijing Genomics Institute and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) have recently sequenced the genome from a male Namibian cheetah and...
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Six New African Frog Species Discovered

Six New African Frog Species Discovered

By chXout Team Comment Closed
Zoologist Ben Evans, of McMaster University in Hamilton, and a team of researchers have discovered six new species of African clawed frog (Xenopus).  All six new species are relatively small (approximately 5 cm) and were found in West and sub-Saharan Africa. African clawed frogs are highly aquatic, living in slow moving or stagnant water. Characteristically they have streamlined and flattened bodies, a vocal organ specialised for underwater sound production, lateral line organs, claws on the first three toes (inner) and fully webbed toes. African clawed frogs are widely used as a model organism for biological research including developmental biology, cell biology, toxicology, neuroscience and for modelling human disease and birth defects. They also provide a unique system for analyses of genome evolution and whole genome duplication in vertebrates, as most clawed frog species are polyploid ie they have multiple sets of DNA due to genome duplication. The discovery of these six new species, increases the number of known clawed frog species to...
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Decoding the Sea Otter Genome

Decoding the Sea Otter Genome

By chXout Team Comment Closed
Large sea otter populations once ranged from Northern Japan all the way around the Northern Pacific Rim to Baja California. However, in 1741 when the fur trade began, their numbers started to rapidly decline. The pelts of sea otters were so in demand that sea otter populations were driven to near extinction by the end of the 19thcentury. In 1911 sea otters were protected by the International Fur Seal Treaty but for some populations this was already too late. In the Kuril Islands, Kamchatka Peninsula, Aleutian Islands, South-Central Alaska and California the small remaining populations began to grow. Some populations have returned to their historical population sizes but others, such as the population in California, have grown more slowly. Annabel Beichman, a PhD student at UCLA, together with Monterey Bay Aquarium are leading the effort to aid the recovery of the sea otters. They plan the first ever sequencing of the sea otter genome. The extreme decline, to a very small size,...
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DNA analysis joins the fight against seafood fraud

By chXout Team Comment Closed
Fraud is one of the biggest issues in seafood industry. It is thought that up to one quarter of the seafood on the market is not labeled with the correct species ID and behind this also lies the depletion of marine populations, threats to food security and up to $23 billion in economic losses globally each year. DNA and genomics have great potential to improve seafood traceability and therefore protect consumers. Currently, DNA barcoding, the term given to species identification by use of DNA technology is carried out by sequencing a section of the mitochondrial DNA to identify the species and in many cases these data can be used to trace the sample back to the population of origin. Mislabeling usually involves substitution of a cheaper fish with a more expensive one (e.g. pollack for cod, pollack for langoustines in “scampi” or rainbow trout for sea trout). One final possibility that genetic analysis offers the chance to identify traces of DNA from illegally...
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CRISPR editing wild DNA – promise or nightmare?

By chXout Team Comment Closed
Even at our most peaceful time of the day, when we are calm, not moving, in silence, no matter how quiet our body looks, there is something completely different going on inside us. In our body there are thousands of chemical reactions going on, numerous biochemical routes working at the same time and for the most part they are all perfectly balanced. This dynamic equilibrium is our own point in evolution, where we, as an individual or a group, fit into our environment. In every balanced system, affecting one of the components may cause an imbalance that puts at risk the whole group integrity. Of all biomolecules or cell components, DNA is probably the most challenging and interesting from a biological point of view. DNA constitutes the genetic instructions for the development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and therefore genetically determines who or what we are. It is thus with a mixture of trepidation and excitement that the ready availability...
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How genes allowed mammoth survival in the Arctic

By chXout Team Comment Closed
Along evolution, genes mutate to allow adaptation to environmental conditions. Scientists from Penn State University, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the University of Chicago have recently identified the genetic changes that helped the woolly mammoth survive in the Arctic. Comparing the complete set of genes of the woolly mammoth with their closest living relatives, the Asian elephant and the African elephant, scientists have identified some of the mutations responsible for the adaptation of the extinct wooly mammoth to extreme cold. Interestingly, most of these mutations are in genes involved in hair development, temperature sensing and body fat storage and metabolism, all of them crucial to survive in harsh arctic conditions. One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of this study is that some of the computational predictions were verified by laboratory experiments. For instance, it has been confirmed that a mammoth-specific change in a protein called TRPV3, related to temperature sensation, hair growth, and body-fat storage, modifies the protein's response...
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