McGaugh Suzanne, Schwartz Tonia S
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 140 Gortner Lab, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, 101 Rouse, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
Biol Lett. 2017 Jan;13(1). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0749.
Endothermy is an evolutionary innovation in eutherian mammals and birds. In eutherian mammals, UCP1 is a key protein in adaptive nonshivering thermogenesis (NST). Although ucp1 arose early in the vertebrate lineage, the loss of ucp1 was previously documented in several reptile species (including birds). Here we determine that ucp1 was lost at the base of the reptile lineage, as we fail to find ucp1 in every major reptile lineage. Furthermore, though UCP1 plays a key role in mammalian NST, we confirm that pig has lost several exons from ucp1 and conclude that pig is not a sole outlier as the only eutherian mammal lineage to do so. Through similarity searches and synteny analysis, we show that ucp1 has also been lost/pseudogenized in Delphinidae (dolphin, orca) and potentially Xenarthra (sloth, armadillo) and Afrotheria (hyrax). These lineages provide models for investigating alternate mechanisms of thermoregulation and energy metabolism in the absence of functional UCP1. Further, the repeated losses of a functional UCP1 suggest the pervasiveness of NST via UCP1 across the mammalian lineage needs re-evaluation.
恒温是真兽类哺乳动物和鸟类的一项进化创新。在真兽类哺乳动物中,解偶联蛋白1(UCP1)是适应性非颤抖性产热(NST)中的关键蛋白。尽管ucp1在脊椎动物谱系中出现得较早,但此前在几种爬行动物物种(包括鸟类)中已记录到ucp1的缺失。在这里我们确定ucp1在爬行动物谱系的基部就已丢失,因为我们在每个主要的爬行动物谱系中都未发现ucp1。此外,尽管UCP1在哺乳动物的NST中起关键作用,但我们证实猪的ucp1已丢失了几个外显子,并得出结论,猪并非唯一有此情况的真兽类哺乳动物谱系。通过相似性搜索和共线性分析,我们表明ucp1在海豚科(海豚、虎鲸)以及可能在异关节总目(树懒、犰狳)和非洲兽总目(蹄兔)中也已丢失/假基因化。这些谱系为研究在缺乏功能性UCP1的情况下的体温调节和能量代谢的替代机制提供了模型。此外,功能性UCP1的反复丢失表明,通过UCP1进行的NST在整个哺乳动物谱系中的普遍性需要重新评估。