Annual Review of Animal Biosciences最新文献

Ruminant species are vital for agriculture, ecosystems, and conservation and remain vulnerable to infectious and zoonotic diseases. Advances in genome sequencing and genomics now enable high-resolution analysis of immunoglobulin (IG) loci and antibody repertoires uncovering extensive germline diversity, structural variation, and lineage-specific adaptations, such as ultralong cysteine-rich Abs in cattle. This review summarizes current knowledge of ruminant IG locus organization and repertoire generation and discusses the evolutionary origins of ultralong Abs. It also examines the challenges highly repetitive IG loci pose for assembly, annotation, and nomenclature and highlights emerging solutions. Finally, it describes genomic approaches for linking immune genotypes to phenotypes that create promise for improving ruminant health.

comparative genomics, evolution, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computational biology, behaviorMammals and other vertebrates exhibit an incredible diversity of complex behaviors that have evolved as these species adapted to their environments. Underlying the phenotypic diversity is molecular diversity: The brain is composed of hundreds of molecularly distinct cell types that play a variety of roles in different behaviors and neural circuits. Single cell and spatial transcriptomic techniques are providing insights into which features of those neural cell types are conserved or divergent across mammals and, more broadly, vertebrates. The ability to genomically characterize individual neurons has created opportunities to link evolution at a molecular level to evolution at the circuit and behavioral levels. Although discoveries in evolutionary biology have been made by leveraging single cell genomics, fundamental methodological challenges remain to be addressed. New types and increased complexity of data sets have spurred the development of various new computational techniques. In parallel, new genomic technologies are being developed to better perturb and study brain regulatory networks. The methods for reconstructing regulatory networks in vitro have been advancing rapidly, but challenges still exist in reliably adapting those technologies for use in vivo across a wide variety of species. As the genomic technologies and computational approaches become tractable in the brains of animals, the field is poised to make big discoveries in how complex mammalian behaviors evolve.

The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are a group of fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disorders caused by the misfolding of prion proteins, leading to severe neuropathology and death. Since the description of scrapie in sheep several centuries ago, significant advancements have been made in understanding the spectrum of prion diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Despite decades of research, critical gaps remain in our understanding of prion replication mechanisms, interspecies transmission, and the environmental persistence of prions. Advances in molecular imaging, including cryo-electron microscopy, have been instrumental in visualizing prion-associated aggregates in affected brain tissues, providing critical insights into their conformation and strain-specific structures. We explore the development of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy research in animals, major scientific breakthroughs, and the pressing need for innovative diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. Addressing these challenges is essential for controlling the spread of prion diseases, and reducing their impact on public health and agriculture.

Tasmanian devils are globally renowned for their calamitous decline over the past 30 years due to two contagious clonal cancers and the heroic efforts of researchers, conservationists, and the community to bring them back from the brink of extinction. Scientific investigations into the world's largest marsupial carnivore commenced in the early 1900s. This systematic review follows the changing face of scientific research into Tasmanian devils. It reflects on how science moved from biological investigations in the 1950s and 1960s, to ecological studies in the 1980s and 1990s, to the discovery of the first clonal cancer in 1996, followed by a flurry of work to understand the disease and develop a vaccine, establish and manage an insurance program, and then roll out a translocation program that alleviated small population pressures and maintained devils in the wild. Over this period, technology has changed rapidly, from camera traps to satellite collars and microsatellites to whole-genome sequencing. Through this, societal support for the species has never wavered, and the species persists in the wild.

Sleep is a universal behavior across animals, critical for physiological homeostasis, cognitive function, and development. Throughout evolution, animals have adapted to environmental changes, but current rapid climate change may threaten sleep patterns adapted to specific ecological niches through rising temperatures, shifting precipitation, and extreme weather. Despite the importance of sleep, climate change-driven sleep disruptions are not well-considered. We introduce the importance of sleep and examine how climate change affects sleep in different biogeographical zones (polar, tropical, dry, and marine and coastal regions), highlighting region-specific vulnerabilities. Furthermore, we discuss the cascading effects of sleep disruption on species interactions, population dynamics, and ecosystem functioning. We emphasize the need for long-term ecological studies, advances in sleep-measurement technologies in free-living animals, and the integration of sleep ecology into conservation strategies. Future priorities include assessing variability within and between individuals, the fitness costs of sleep loss, and the potential for evolutionary adaptation.

Adult tissue regeneration is a rare phenomenon in mammals. Most mammals heal tissue through scarring, which quickly seals the wound and helps prevent blood loss and infection, but this comes at the cost of poor tissue regeneration. Regeneration is typically studied in worms, amphibians, or fish, which gives insights into the biology of respective species but provides limited translation for human therapies. However, several mammals develop adaptations, typically favored by natural selection pressures, to regenerate a specialized tissue (e.g., antlers in deer or skin in bats) or a systemically reduced scar formation that allows multiple tissues to restore their function (e.g., African spiny mice). In this review, we aim to summarize the examples of mammals that regenerate tissues and discuss potential cellular mechanisms that allow their regeneration. The future studies of these exceptional mammals can allow for a greater understanding of mammalian complexity and provide insights for future therapies.

Dairy cattle industries navigating increasingly frequent climate disruptions and volatile input costs must maintain productivity while simultaneously minimizing environmental impacts. This article examines how resilience (ability to recover from short-term disturbances) and robustness (capacity for long-term adaptation to challenging environments) contribute to longevity and lifetime efficiency in farm animals. Resilience reduces aging costs by enhancing recovery from environmental perturbations, e.g., health challenges, whereas robustness involves resource allocation strategies that facilitate survival in constraining environments. Both traits exhibit moderate heritability, offering opportunities for genetic improvement. However, their expression varies significantly across environments, necessitating context-specific selection approaches. Simulation studies, using models that incorporate robustness and resilience mechanisms, demonstrate that genotype-by-environment interactions strongly influence the economic and environmental benefits of selecting for these traits. In conclusion, incorporating resilience and robustness into breeding objectives can improve lifetime efficiency, particularly in challenging environments, but their economic value must be evaluated carefully in relation to specific production systems and anticipated future conditions.

Selenoproteins incorporate selenocysteine (Sec), a noncanonical amino acid analogous to cysteine with selenium in place of sulfur. Sec is inserted co-translationally via a unique recoding process that redefines the UGA stop codon in selenoprotein transcripts, marked by the Sec insertion sequence (SECIS) element in the 3' untranslated region. Metazoans display striking diversity in their selenoproteomes. Although many animals, including mammals, depend on selenoproteins for critical roles in redox homeostasis and signaling, thyroid hormone metabolism, and stress responses, other lineages have lost the entire Sec pathway. We summarize the molecular biology of Sec, covering its biosynthesis, metabolism, insertion, and regulatory mechanisms. We then examine the evolutionary dynamics of selenoproteins across metazoa, including gene duplications, losses, and substitutions of Sec to cysteine. Finally, we present an updated survey of known metazoan selenoprotein families, detailing their structure, function, and phylogenetic distribution. Altogether, we offer a comprehensive view of selenoprotein evolution and function in animals.

Adopted in December 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) under the Convention on Biological Diversity outlines a visionary road map guiding humanity's relationship with nature. KMGBF commitments require active intervention, sustained monitoring and scientific reporting, capacity building for tools and technologies, and cooperation among 196 signatories. Genetic diversity, which underlies adaptation and fitness, is a core tenet of the KMGBF. This article aims to distill the KMGBF to help researchers, practitioners, and other interested parties achieve its commitments. In five sections, we address (a) the KMGBF's terminology and scope, (b) the intersection of KMGBF targets with genetic diversity, (c) genetic monitoring for tracking its progress, (d) paradigms and decision frameworks to guide genetic conservation actions, and (e) emerging frontiers. A better understanding of the KMGBF will help researchers, practitioners, and other interested parties more effectively engage and fulfill global, national, and local commitments to the conservation of our planet's biodiversity.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as key regulators of gene expression, yet their annotation and functional characterization remain challenging, especially in nonclassical model organisms. In this review, we explore the landscape of lncRNAs in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and other species, highlighting recent advances in genome assemblies, transcriptomic resources, and computational tools for lncRNA discovery. We discuss the advantages of the canine system for studying genotype-phenotype relationships, including its rich breed diversity, well-characterized diseases, and simplified genetic architecture. We describe how both short- and long-read RNA-sequencing technologies, in combination with curated reference annotations from Ensembl and RefSeq, have enabled the detection of thousands of novel canine lncRNAs. However, we also point out discrepancies across assemblies and annotation strategies, which underscore the importance of integrating multi-omic data and refining computational pipelines. Using comparative genomics, we illustrate lncRNA conservation across dog breeds and species and review emerging examples of phenotype-associated or differentially expressed lncRNAs. Finally, we argue for a transition toward pangenome and pan-transcriptome approaches, which can better capture transcript diversity and structural variation across breeds. Such frameworks will be essential for the future functional annotation of lncRNAs and their application to both veterinary and human biomedical research.