December 5, 2017
An international research team
including Vasily Ramensky, a bioinformatics scientist at MIPT's Genome
Engineering Laboratory, has classified the six species of African green monkeys
based on their genomes, studied their genetic adaptations to the simian immunodeficiency
virus (SIV), and produced a gene expression atlas for one of the species. The
results of the study were published in two articles in Nature Genetics.
The introduction of sequencing
and genome comparison tools marked the beginning of a new era in animal
systematics, enabling researchers to achieve greater accuracy in establishing
genetic relatedness, which is not always reflected in morphology. By comparing
genetic information, we can now determine the species boundaries within which
genetic diversity is the lowest. In this study, the researchers clarified the
genetic relationships between the species of African green monkeys, also known
as vervet monkeys, or vervets. They identified six species from across Africa,
one from Barbados, and one from the Caribbean islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
But genome analysis is more than a way of refining taxonomies: It can provide
insights into the evolution and geographic distribution of species, as well as
species-specific genetic disorders, and much more.
Vervet monkeys are the nonhuman
primates most closely related to humans. They have long been an important
biomedical model, widely used in behavioral research, in studies of resistance
to virus infections, and in vaccine development. Vervets are known to be
natural hosts of SIV, which is a close relative of HIV. Although they are
frequently infected by the virus, SIV does them no harm: They have evolved the
ability to live with the virus and avoid immune system degradation. In one of
the two papers reported here, researchers analyze a group of vervet monkey
genes that interact with SIV.
Genetic analysis suggested that
the first encounter of vervets with SIV took place about one million years ago.
As time passed, one original host species diverged into many, each of which
acquired its own genetic adaptations to SIV. Studies of the biological
mechanisms involved in host-pathogen interactions in vervet monkeys provide a
million years' worth of data about living with the immunodeficiency virus.
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