Genome-wide adaptive complexes to underground stresses in blind mole rats Spalax
Open accessAbstract
The blind mole rat (BMR), Spalax galili, is an excellent model for studying mammalian adaptation to life underground and medical applications. The BMR spends its entire life underground, protecting itself from predators and climatic fluctuations while challenging it with multiple stressors such as darkness, hypoxia, hypercapnia, energetics and high pathonecity. Here we sequence and analyse the BMR genome and transcriptome, highlighting the possible genomic adaptive responses to the underground stressors. Our results show high rates of RNA/DNA editing, reduced chromosome rearrangements, an over-representation of short interspersed elements (SINEs) probably linked to hypoxia tolerance, degeneration of vision and progression of photoperiodic perception, tolerance to hypercapnia and hypoxia and resistance to cancer. The remarkable traits of the BMR, together with its genomic and transcriptomic information, enhance our understanding of adaptation to extreme environments and will enable the utilization of BMR models for biomedical research in the fight against cancer, stroke and cardiovascular diseases.
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Case studies investigating the fate of selected genes have uncovered associations between gene losses and several mammalian phenotypes.
“Case studies investigating the fate of selected genes uncovered associations between gene losses and several mammalian phenotypes14–16.”
From A genomics approach reveals insights into the importance of gene losses for mammalian adaptations (2018) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Fang, X., Nevo, E., Han, L., Levanon, E. Y., Zhao, J., Avivi, A., Larkin, D., Jiang, X., Feranchuk, S., Zhu, Y., Fishman, A., Feng, Y., Sher, N., Xiong, Z., Hankeln, T., Huang, Z., Gorbunova, V., Zhang, L., Zhao, W., Wildman, D. E., Xiong, Y., Gudkov, A., Zheng, Q., Rechavi, G., Liu, S., Bazak, L., Chen, J., Knisbacher, B. A., Lu, Y., Shams, I., Gajda, K., Farré, M., Kim, J., Lewin, H. A., Ma, J., Band, M., Bicker, A., Kranz, A., Mattheus, T., Schmidt, H., Seluanov, A., Azpurua, J., McGowen, M. R., Ben Jacob, E., Li, K., Peng, S., Zhu, X., Liao, X., Li, S., Krogh, A., Zhou, X., Brodsky, L., & Wang, J.
- Affiliations
- BGI Group (China) (CN)
- University of Haifa (IL)
- Bar-Ilan University (IL)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Aberystwyth University (GB)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- University of Rochester (US)
- Wayne State University (US)
- China National GeneBank (CN)
- Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (US)
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- Konkuk University (KR)
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- National University of Defense Technology (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Nevo, Eviatar
- Zhou, Xin
- Brodsky, Leonid
- Wang, Jun
- ORCID
- Fang, Xiaodong
- Nevo, Eviatar
- Han, Lijuan
- Levanon, Erez Y.
- Zhao, Jing
- Avivi, Aaron
- Larkin, Denis
- Feranchuk, Sergey
- Zhu, Yabing
- Sher, Noa
- Xiong, Zhiqiang
- Hankeln, Thomas
- Huang, Zhiyong
- Gorbunova, Vera
- Zhang, Lu
- Zhao, Wei
- Wildman, Derek E.
- Gudkov, Andrei
- Rechavi, Gideon
- Liu, Sanyang
- Bazak, Lily
- Knisbacher, Binyamin A.
- Lu, Yao
- Shams, Imad
- Farré, Marta
- Kim, Jaebum
- Lewin, Harris A.
- Ma, Jian
- Bicker, Anne
- Kranz, Angela
- Schmidt, Hanno
- Seluanov, Andrei
- McGowen, Michael R.
- Peng, Shaoliang
- Zhu, Xiaoqian
- Krogh, Anders
- Zhou, Xin
- Brodsky, Leonid
- Wang, Jun
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2014-06-03
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3966-3966
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2062753251
- Cited by
- 136
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 5
- FWCI
- 11.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2015-08-12)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent) (acceptedVersion)
- RVC Research Online (Royal Veterinary College) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (31171190)
- Israel Cancer Association
- National University of Defense Technology
- Infrastruktura PL-Grid
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (HR0011-11-C- 0094)
- Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/J010170/2, BB/J010170/1)
- National Institute on Aging (P01AG047200)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Subterranean biodiversity and taxonomy
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Keywords
- blind mole rat, underground life, hypoxia tolerance, RNA editing, DNA editing, short interspersed nuclear elements, chromosomal rearrangements, tumor resistance, extreme environment adaptation, transcriptome
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Physiological, Animals, Hypoxia, Darkness, Hypercapnia, Stress, Physiological, Genome, RNA Editing, Evolution, Molecular, Short Interspersed Nucleotide Elements, Gene Expression Profiling, Spalax, Transcriptome
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