Old World monkeys could be key to a new, powerful rheumatoid arthritis therapy

Peptide only found in Old World monkeys has the potential to stop rheumatoid arthritis progression better than established treatments

Date:  November 16, 2017

Source:  University of Southern California - Health Sciences

In the quest for a new and more effective treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC looked to a primate that mostly roams the land in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It was a particular peptide only found in Old World monkeys, called θ-defensin 1 (RTD-1), that the researchers believed had the potential to stop -- or even reverse -- the progression of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects about 1.5 million people in the United States. The promising results of their study were published in PLOS ONE.

"RTD-1 is the prototype of a family of small cyclic peptides (θ-defensins), the only circular proteins in the animal kingdom," says study author Michael Selsted, MD, PhD, chair and professor of pathology at the Keck School. "Previous studies have shown that RTD-1 modulates lethal inflammation in animal models of infection, and we predicted that RTD-1's protective mechanism in those models would translate to rheumatoid arthritis, a disease in which chronic inflammation produces irreversible joint damage."

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HIV-Related Virus Has Existed in Primates for Millions of Years

by Elizabeth Goldbaum, Staff Writer | August 27, 2015 03:05pm ET

Viruses related to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have infected Old World monkeys as far back as 16 million years ago, according to a new study. The research provides insight into how monkeys evolved and adapted to the simian version of HIV, and why some viruses can jump from one species to another, researchers say.

In the new study, researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of a gene that produces a protein that protects mammals' cells from retroviruses — a group of viruses that includes HIV and its counterpart that affects monkeys, called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Both HIV and SIV are lentiviruses, a subset of retroviruses. With lentiviruses, it takes a relatively long time between when a person or animal is exposed to the virus and when symptoms show up. For instance, it may take two to four weeks for people infected with HIV to show flu-like symptoms, according to the U.S. Department of Health.

"HIV in humans is actually the result of an SIV jumping from chimpanzees in Africa into humans, and then adapting to humans and spreading in the human population," said study co-author Welkin Johnson, a biology professor at Boston College. The close genetic relationship between humans and monkeys allowed the virus to jump between species, Johnson said.

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Facial differences help monkeys avoid interbreeding

Looking different facially has helped Old World monkeys avoid interbreeding with closely related and geographically proximate species, new research shows.

The researchers, from New York University and the University of Exeter, studied 1,400 photographs of nearly two dozen species of guenons, chosen because many of the different species live in close proximity to each other, often travelling, feeding, and sleeping side-by-side.

"These results strongly suggest that the extraordinary appearance of these monkeys has been due to selection for visual signals that discourage hybridization," said lead author William Allen, now at the University of Hull.

"This is perhaps the strongest evidence to date for a role for visual signals in the key evolutionary processes by which species are formed and maintained, and it is particularly exciting that we have found it in part of our own lineage."

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Mandrill monkey makes 'pedicuring' tool

A crude "pedicure" carried out by a mandrill at Chester Zoo suggests the monkeys are capable of more advanced tool use than previously thought.


Scientists from Durham University, UK, filmed the mandrill stripping a twig and using the resulting tool to clean under its toenails.

They published the findings in the journal Behavioural Processes.

Mandrills are the fifth species of Old World monkey seen deliberately modifying tools.

Non-human apes, including chimpanzees and orangutans, can adapt basic tools for specific jobs.

One well-known example of this behaviour is termite fishing in chimpanzees, where the animals strip down grasses to make fishing rods that they then poke into termite mounds to snag the nutritious insects.

The gap between monkeys and great apes is not as large as we thought it was”

"It is an ability that, up until a few years ago, was thought to be unique to humans," said Dr Riccardo Pansini, who led the research.

The new findings, he said, indicate that monkeys' intelligence may too have been underestimated.

"The gap between monkeys and great apes is not as large as we thought it was in terms of tool use and modification," he told BBC Nature.

Dr Pansini captured the footage while studying stress-related behaviour in the zoo's mandrills.

His research during that time helped inform the design of a specially landscaped enclosure, which contained shrubs to give the animals hiding places. The design won an animal welfare award in 2007.

In the footage that Dr Pansini captured, a large male mandrill strips down a twig, apparently to make it narrower. The animal then uses the modified stick to scrape dirt from underneath its toenails.

Though the scientist was excited to witness this deliberate tool modification, he said it was not entirely surprising.

"Mandrills have been seen to clean their ears with modified tools in the wild," he told BBC Nature. "This was thought to help prevent ear infections and therefore might be an important behaviour in terms of hygiene."

He thinks the captive setting may have helped bring out this behaviour.

"Animals have more time in captivity to carry out tasks that are not focused on looking for food or mating," he said. "So in zoos, you can occasionally pick up behaviours that are a little bit strange.

"In the wild this 'pedicuring' would be considered trivial," he explained. "But cleaning their ears with the same modified tool probably gave the animals some relief from the pain in their ears.


"So we're witnessing the same behaviour that's used in quite important tasks being adapted for a less important task," Dr Pansini said.

Dr Amanda Seed, an expert in primate tool-use from the University of St Andrews, UK, praised the researchers for capturing such interesting footage.

She added, though, that it was not entirely clear that the mandrill was deliberately modifying the stick for the specific goal of producing a "sharpened toenail-cleaning tool".

She told BBC Nature: "For me, the behaviour is closer to what we already know from other species, using a stick for self-cleaning purposes, than the tool modification of say chimpanzees - which rake their stick tools through their teeth to produce a brush for gathering termites.

"But these definitions are always tricky. You could say that as soon as an animal pulls a branch from a tree, they're modifying that branch."

Dr Sonya Hill a research officer at Chester Zoo, added that research findings from zoos could have a "direct impact on evidence-based conservation and husbandry practices".

"They can also contribute to a wider body of scientific knowledge, as this mandrill study has shown."

By Victoria Gill

Science reporter, BBC Nature

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14227783

Rhesus Monkeys Appear to Have a Form of Self-Awareness Not Previously Attributed to Them, Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2011) — In the first study of its kind in an animal species that has not passed a critical test of self-recognition, cognitive psychologist Justin J. Couchman of the University at Buffalo has demonstrated that rhesus monkeys appear to have a sense of self-agency -- the ability to understand that they are the cause of certain actions -- and possess a form of self-awareness previously not attributed to them.

The study, which will be published July 6 in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society, may illuminate apparent self-awareness deficits in humans with autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and developmental disabilities.

Rhesus monkeys are one of the best-known species of Old World monkeys, and have been used extensively in medical and biological research aimed at creating vaccines for rabies, smallpox and polio and drugs to manage HIV/AIDS; analyzing stem cells and sequencing the genome. Humans have sent them into space, cloned them and planted jellyfish genes in them.

Couchman, a PhD candidate at UB, is an instructor at UB and at the State University of New York College at Fredonia. He points out that previous research has shown that rhesus monkeys, like apes and dolphins, have metacognition, or the ability to monitor their own mental states. Nevertheless, the monkeys consistently fail the mirror self-recognition test, which assesses whether animals can recognize themselves in a mirror, and this is an important measure self-awareness.

"We know that in humans, the sense of self-agency is closely related to self-awareness," Couchman says, "and that it results from monitoring the relationship between pieces of intentional, sensorimotor and perceptual information.

"Based on previous findings in comparative metacognition research, we thought that even though they fail the mirror test, rhesus monkeys might have some other form of self-awareness. In this study we looked at whether the monkeys have a sense of self agency, that is, the understanding that some actions are the consequence of their own intentions."

For the study, Couchman trained 40 UB undergraduates and four male rhesus monkeys, housed in the Language Research Center of Georgia State University, to move a computer cursor with a joystick while a distractor cursor partially matched their movements. After moving the cursor, both humans and monkeys were asked to identify the computer cursor that they controlled -- the one that matched their movements and intentions. Both species were able to select the cursor they controlled from an array of choices, including the distractor cursor, at greater than chance levels.

"This suggests that the monkeys, like humans, have some understanding of self agency," says Couchman. "This awareness or implicit sense that it is 'me' who is presently executing a bodily movement or thinking thoughts is an important form of self-awareness."

Couchman says that because this is the first such demonstration of self-agency in a species that has not passed the mirror self-recognition test, the results may shed light on apparent self-awareness deficits in humans.

"Mirror self-recognition is developmentally delayed in autistic children and absent in many who are mentally retarded, have Alzheimer's disease or are schizophrenic. It is not clear why this deficit occurs, but like rhesus monkeys," he says, "these groups may simply have biases against mirrors.

"If, when studied, such individuals attempted to distinguish self-generated actions from partially altered actions in the paradigm reported in this study," Couchman say, "it might offer information as to whether the breakdown in their mirror self-recognition is due to a difficulty in processing certain kinds of perceptual or cognitive information."

Decades of psychological research has established that the concept of agency implies an active organism, one who desires, makes plans and carries out actions. The sense of agency and its scientific study is significant in the study of social cognition, moral reasoning and psychopathology because of its implications for intention, consciousness, responsibility, desire and development.

"Self agency also plays a pivotal role in cognitive development," Couchman says.

"It is linked to metacognition, the first stages of self-awareness and theory of mind (understanding the mental states of others). These abilities give humans the sense that they are entities separate from the external world, and allow them to interact with other agents and the environment in intelligent ways. If rhesus monkeys are able to recognize themselves as agents that cause certain actions," he says, "then they probably have a similar understanding that they are entities independent from the environment."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110705183630.htm