Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101300, China.
Gene. 2013 Jul 10;523(2):187-91. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2013.03.011. Epub 2013 Apr 20.
The Tibetan Antelope (TA), which has lived at high altitude for millions of years, was selected as the model species of high hypoxia-tolerant adaptation. Here we constructed two cDNA libraries from lung and cardiac muscle tissues, obtained EST sequences from the libraries, and acquired extensive expression data related energy metabolism genes. Comparative analyses of synonymous (Ks) and nonsynonymous (Ka) substitution rates of nucleus-encoded mitochondrial unigenes among different species revealed that many antelope genes have undergone rapid evolution. Surfactant-associated protein A (SP-A) and surfactant-associated protein B (SP-B) genes in the AT lineage experienced accelerated evolution compared to goat and sheep, and these two genes are highly expressed in the lung tissue. This study suggests that many specific genes of lung and cardiac muscle tissues showed unique expression profiles and may undergo fast adaptive evolution in TA. These data provide useful information for studying on molecular adaptation to high-altitude in humans as well as other mammals.
藏羚羊（TA）在高原地区生活了数百万年，被选为高原缺氧适应的模型物种。本研究构建了来自肺和心肌组织的两个 cDNA 文库，获得了文库的 EST 序列，并获得了与能量代谢基因相关的广泛表达数据。对不同物种核编码线粒体基因的同义（Ks）和非同义（Ka）取代率的比较分析表明，许多羚羊基因经历了快速进化。与山羊和绵羊相比，AT 谱系中的表面活性剂相关蛋白 A（SP-A）和表面活性剂相关蛋白 B（SP-B）基因经历了加速进化，这两个基因在肺组织中高度表达。本研究表明，许多肺和心肌组织的特异性基因表现出独特的表达谱，可能在藏羚羊中经历了快速的适应性进化。这些数据为研究人类和其他哺乳动物对高海拔的分子适应提供了有用的信息。
