Adawaren Emmanuel Oluwasegun, Du Plessis Morne, Suleman Essa, Kindler Duodane, Oosthuizen Almero O, Mukandiwa Lillian, Naidoo Vinny
Department of Paraclinical Science/Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
Bioinformatics and Comparative Genomics, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.
PeerJ. 2020 Nov 11;8:e10034. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10034. eCollection 2020.
Three species of Old World vultures on the Asian peninsula are slowly recovering from the lethal consequences of diclofenac. At present the reason for species sensitivity to diclofenac is unknown. Furthermore, it has since been demonstrated that other Old World vultures like the Cape (; CGV) and griffon () vultures are also susceptible to diclofenac toxicity. Oddly, the New World Turkey vulture () and pied crow () are not susceptible to diclofenac toxicity. As a result of the latter, we postulate an evolutionary link to toxicity. As a first step in understanding the susceptibility to diclofenac toxicity, we use the CGV as a model species for phylogenetic evaluations, by comparing the relatedness of various raptor species known to be susceptible, non-susceptible and suspected by their relationship to the Cape vulture mitogenome. This was achieved by next generation sequencing and assembly. The Cape vulture mitogenome had a genome size of 16,908 bp. The mitogenome phylogenetic analysis indicated a close evolutionary relationship between Old World vultures and other members of the Accipitridae as indicated by bootstrap value of 100% on the phylogenetic trees. Based on this, we postulate that the other species could also be sensitive to the toxic effects of diclofenac. This warrants further investigations.
亚洲半岛上的三种旧大陆秃鹫正在从双氯芬酸的致命影响中缓慢恢复。目前，这些物种对双氯芬酸敏感的原因尚不清楚。此外，后来已经证明，其他旧大陆秃鹫，如南非兀鹫（CGV）和兀鹰，也易受双氯芬酸毒性的影响。奇怪的是，新大陆的土耳其兀鹫和斑颈鸦对双氯芬酸毒性不敏感。基于后者，我们推测存在与毒性的进化联系。作为了解双氯芬酸毒性易感性的第一步，我们以南非兀鹫作为系统发育评估的模型物种，通过比较已知易感性、非易感性和疑似易感性的各种猛禽物种与南非兀鹫线粒体基因组的亲缘关系。这是通过下一代测序和组装实现的。南非兀鹫线粒体基因组的大小为16908 bp。线粒体基因组系统发育分析表明，旧大陆秃鹫与鹰科的其他成员之间存在密切的进化关系，系统发育树上的自展值为100%。基于此，我们推测其他物种也可能对双氯芬酸的毒性敏感。这值得进一步研究。
