#20 The Full Genome Mapped, Primal Guts, Smoke Exposure, Pregnancy and Monkeys...
The full human genome mapped for the first time, wildfire smoke exposure in early pregnancies and the external environment on gut fungal communities...
🗺️The FULL Genome Mapped
The full human genome mapped for the first time…
The famous human genome project that hit the news headlines in 2003 sequenced 92% of the human genome. This project was revolutionary and has helped in the understanding of genetics, disease prevention, evolution and almost every aspect of biology. In recent research, published in the journal science, a team of scientists have finished the job. New insights contributed 400 million letters of previously unsequenced DNA. The T2T consortium, organized in 2019 by Karen Miga and Adam Phillippy, published six papers in total which outlined the results of their research.
The “no-gap” human genome that the consortium compiled consists of more than 3 billion base pairs of DNA with just under 20,000 protein-encoding genes. Whilst a few more percent may not seem like a big difference, having the full genome allows the medical community to analyse the genetic variation compared to the base genome and so investigate how these variations play a role in disease.
The Human Genome Project cost a $450 million to carry out with this recent research costing a few million more. Phillippy said he hopes sequencing an individual’s genome can cost less than $1,000 within the next 10 years, helping in routine medical procedures.
The T2T consortium were able to complete this research and project using two DNA sequencing technologies that were only developed over the last decade. The Oxford nanopore DNA sequencing method is a method in which an “ultralong read” of genetic code, sequencing up to 1 million DNA letters at a time can occur.
The reason for the last 8% being so difficult was due to its highly repetitive nature. In genome sequencing the more repetitions in a section of DNA, the less unique and so the harder it is to accurately determine its position. The previously unmapped sections of the genome include genes that are important for evolutionary adaptation. These newly discovered genes are responsible for the rapid evolution of the human brain and will help us to better understand how humans gained a superior cognition over other primates.
The next step for genomic researchers is to create a new “human panogenome reference” which will compile genomic information from a wide range of humans.
🐒Smoke Exposure, Pregnancy and Monkeys
Wildfire smoke exposure in early pregnancy affecting infant monkeys…
Infant monkeys, conceived while their mothers were exposed to wildfire smoke, show behavioural changes compared to infants conceived just days later under different conditions.
Research from the California National Primate Research Centre at the University of California published this work in nature communications. The research showed the importance of timing in the effect of smoke exposure on pregnancy and suggests a teratogenic developmental mechanism stated senior author Bill Lasley.
"I think this will have an effect on future studies of exposures in pregnancy, because we'll know when to look," Lasley said. He went on to say how existing studies of environmental exposures during pregnancy in humans are retrospective, with women potentially not realising they are pregnant until weeks into the first trimester.
89 animals were conceived in and around the time of a large scale campfire in 2018. 52 of these animals were considered exposed to the natural smoke exposure experiment with 37 conceived later and so not considered exposed. At about 3-4 months old, the young monkeys are assessed on a variety of cognitive and behavioural tests. Whilst only a sample of the smoke-exposed infants were tested, the sample showed increases in a marker of inflammation, a reduced cortisol response to stress, memory deficits and a more passive temperament said Capitanio, professor of psychology at UC Davis and core scientist at the CNPRC.
"It's a mild effect across a variety of domains of psychological function," Capitanio said. The effects are consistent with those found in studies of prenatal exposure to air pollution, he said. Comparison between the groups and with animals born in other years shows that the results are not due to the timing of conception (earlier versus later in the breeding season).
This research suggests that some component of wildfire smoke can act as a teratogen, which affects foetal development. This component could be airborne hydrocarbons such as phthalates which were identified in the smoke plume from the camp fire.
Lasley said that unlike other mammals, the placenta of primates such as humans and rhesus macaques produces hormones that support brain development through the adrenal system. He went on to say that "Since foetal adrenal glands are the source of cortisol and other steroids for neurologic development, which determines behaviours, a scenario of a placenta-adrenal-brain axis could be the causal pathway,".
🍄External Environment in the Primal Gut
The influence of the external environment on fungal communities…
The importance of gut fungi in mammals and the way in which different environmental factors can shape these fungal communities is becoming better understood by researchers.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Minnesota and collaborators showed an overview of the gut fungal communities composition. Furthermore they presented the fungal-bacterial interactions in different nonhuman primates and human populations with a diverse set of food acquisition practices.
The research team led by Ashok Kumar Sharma, a postdoctoral researcher at Cedars-Sinai sequenced ITS2 and 16S rRNA gene markers in faecal samples of four nonhuman primate species and three different human groups so that the fungal and bacterial communities be profiled.
"Understanding how the fungal community adapts and interacts with bacterial communities in response to different factors such as diet and lifestyle would provide a basic framework to explore their potential roles in human health and diseases," said Sharma.
Similarities between captive apes and humans following industrialised lifestyles indicate a potential influence of diet and lifestyle factors over genetics in shaping gut fungal community composition and fungal bacterial interactions.
Overall results suggest that the influence of ecological, behavioural and individual factors are key in shaping the mycobiome of the primates gut. The communities of the fungi colonise the gastrointestinal tract of primates. Ecological differences have shown not only to influence fungal communities, but to influence how fungi and bacteria co-exist in the gut. Fungal and bacterial taxa with a similar functional potential may interact to perform common metabolic functions, such as carbohydrate degradation.
"Because environmental factors are probably more important than host genetics in shaping the mycobiome, we could consider the mycobiome to be a better indicator of a healthy and stable ecosystem in which the primates live," said Klara Judita Petrzelkova, a researcher and Ph.D. at the Czech Academy of Sciences. Measuring the contribution of a specific food source and its role in determining fungal assembly would be a key step forward in the future.
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Reference List
Content may be adapted and edited for style and length.
🗺️The FULL Genome Mapped
Chereskin, E., Connor, R., Friedman, W., Jensen, F., Allen, S., Sørensen, P., Krützen, M. and King, S., 2022. Allied male dolphins use vocal exchanges to “bond at a distance”. Current Biology,.
🐒Smoke Exposure, Pregnancy and Monkeys
Capitanio, J., Del Rosso, L., Gee, N. and Lasley, B., 2022. Adverse biobehavioral effects in infants resulting from pregnant rhesus macaques’ exposure to wildfire smoke. Nature Communications, 13(1).
🍄External Environment in the Primal Gut
Capitanio, J., Del Rosso, L., Gee, N. and Lasley, B., 2022. Adverse biobehavioral effects in infants resulting from pregnant rhesus macaques’ exposure to wildfire smoke. Nature Communications, 13(1).
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