Key Laboratory of Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Special Economic Animals, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Special Animal and Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changchun 130112, China.
Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518120, China.
Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics. 2023 Feb;21(1):203-215. doi: 10.1016/j.gpb.2022.05.008. Epub 2022 Jun 16.
Sika deer are known to prefer oak leaves, which are rich in tannins and toxic to most mammals; however, the genetic mechanisms underlying their unique ability to adapt to living in the jungle are still unclear. In identifying the mechanism responsible for the tolerance of a highly toxic diet, we have made a major advancement by explaining the genome of sika deer. We generated the first high-quality, chromosome-level genome assembly of sika deer and measured the correlation between tannin intake and RNA expression in 15 tissues through 180 experiments. Comparative genome analyses showed that the UGT and CYP gene families are functionally involved in the adaptation of sika deer to high-tannin food, especially the expansion of the UGT family 2 subfamily B of UGT genes. The first chromosome-level assembly and genetic characterization of the tolerance to a highly toxic diet suggest that the sika deer genome may serve as an essential resource for understanding evolutionary events and tannin adaptation. Our study provides a paradigm of comparative expressive genomics that can be applied to the study of unique biological features in non-model animals.
梅花鹿以栎树叶为食，而栎树叶富含单宁酸，对大多数哺乳动物都有毒性；然而，它们适应丛林生活的独特遗传机制尚不清楚。在确定耐受高毒性饮食的机制时，我们通过阐明梅花鹿的基因组取得了重大进展。我们生成了第一个高质量的梅花鹿染色体水平基因组组装，并通过 180 个实验测量了 15 种组织中单宁酸摄入与 RNA 表达之间的相关性。比较基因组分析表明，UGT 和 CYP 基因家族在梅花鹿适应高单宁食物方面具有功能，尤其是 UGT 基因家族中的 UGT2 亚家族 B 的扩展。对高毒性饮食耐受的首个染色体水平组装和遗传特征表明，梅花鹿基因组可能是理解进化事件和单宁酸适应的重要资源。我们的研究提供了一个比较表达基因组学的范例，可应用于非模式动物独特生物学特征的研究。
