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Eric J. Sargis - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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using three dimensional geometric morphometric and dental topographic analyses to infer the systematics and paleoecology of fossil treeshrews mammalia Scandentia
Journal of Paleontology, 2020Co-Authors: Keegan R Selig, Eric J. Sargis, Stephen G B Chester, Mary T SilcoxAbstract:Treeshrews are small, Indomalayan mammals closely related to primates. Previously, three-dimensional geometric morphometric analyses were used to assess patterns of treeshrew lower second molar morphology, which showed that the positions of molar landmarks covary with intraordinal systematics. Another analysis used dental topographic metrics to test patterns of functional dental morphology and found that molar curvature, complexity, and relief were an effective means for examining patterns of variation in treeshrew dietary ecology. Here, we build on these analyses by adding two fossil taxa, Prodendrogale yunnanica Qiu, 1986 from the Miocene of China and Ptilocercus kylin Li and Ni, 2016 from the Oligocene of China. Our results show that Pr. yunnanica had a dental bauplan more like that of a tupaiid than that of a ptilocercid, but that the extant tupaiids, including Tupaia and Dendrogale, are more similar to one another in this regard than any are to Prodendrogale. This is contrary to our expectations as Prodendrogale is hypothesized to be most closely related to Dendrogale. Ptilocercus kylin, which has been proposed to be the sister taxon of Pt. lowii Gray, 1848, is characterized by dental morphology like that of Pt. lowii in crest and cuspal position but is interpreted to have been more frugivorous. It has been claimed that Ptilocercus has undergone little morphological change through time. Our results suggest that Pt. kylin was more ecologically distinct from Pt. lowii than previously proposed, providing a glimpse into a more complex evolutionary history of the group than had been inferred.
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coming of age morphometric variation in the hand skeletons of juvenile and adult lesser treeshrews Scandentia tupaiidae tupaia minor gunther 1876
Journal of Mammalogy, 2020Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Link E. Olson, Neal Woodman, Ananth MillermurthyAbstract:Morphometric analyses of the manus skeleton have proven useful in understanding species limits and morphological divergence among tupaiid treeshrews (Scandentia: Tupaiidae). Specimens in these studies are typically limited to mature individuals with fully erupted permanent dentition, which eliminates potentially confounding variation attributable to age, but also can exclude rare taxa and small island populations that are poorly represented in systematic collections. To determine the real limits associated with including immature animals in such studies, we used multivariate analyses to study sexual and age variation of the manus skeleton in two allopatric populations of the Lesser Treeshrew (Tupaia minorGunther, 1876) from the Malay Peninsula and from Borneo that we treated as separate samples. Individuals were aged using dental eruption of the permanent dentition. We also recorded the degree of epiphyseal fusion of the bones of the manus based on x-rays of study skins. We then tested our ability to distinguish the two populations using a series of discriminant function analyses of hand measurements from samples that included varying proportions of immature individuals and adults. We found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in hand proportions, permitting us to combine females and males in our samples. Epiphyseal fusion of the metacarpals and phalanges typically occurs by the time the third molars have completely erupted, and fusion of the distal epiphyses of the radius and ulna typically occurs by the time the permanent fourth premolars are in place. There is occasional asynchrony between dental age and epiphyseal fusion. In both populations, the hands of most infants and subadults provide morphometric values within the range of variation of adults, although they are typically distributed in the lower part of the adult range and have the potential to bias the sample toward lower mean size. The inclusion of infants and subadults when attempting to discriminate between two taxa generally results in lower rates of correct classifications, although the rates increase as the sample of immature individuals is limited to older subadults. As a general rule, we recommend that specimens of infants and subadults continue to be excluded from analyses when exploring taxonomic boundaries among treeshrews. In cases of extremely small sample sizes of adults, however, older subadults—in which the permanent third premolars are erupting or in place—can be used with appropriate caution.
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the frugivorous insectivores functional morphological analysis of molar topography for inferring diet in extant treeshrews Scandentia
Journal of Mammalogy, 2019Co-Authors: Keegan R Selig, Eric J. Sargis, Mary T SilcoxAbstract:The ecology, and particularly the diet, of treeshrews (order Scandentia) is poorly understood compared to that of their close relatives, the primates. This stems partially from treeshrews having fast food transit times through the gut, meaning fecal and stomach samples only represent a small portion of the foodstuffs consumed in a given day. Moreover, treeshrews are difficult to observe in the wild, leading to a lack of observational data in the literature. Although treeshrews are mixed feeders, consuming both insects and fruit, it is currently unknown how the relative importance of these food types varies across Scandentia. Previous study of functional dental morphology has provided an alternative means for understanding the diet of living euarchontans. We used dental topographic metrics to quantify aspects of functional dental morphology in a large sample of treeshrews (n = 58). We measured relief index, Dirichlet normal energy, and three-dimensional orientation patch count rotated, which quantify crown relief, occlusal curvature, and complexity, respectively. Our results suggest that treeshrews exhibit dental morphology consistent with high levels of insectivory relative to other euarchontans. They also suggest that taxa such as Dendrogale melanura and Tupaia belangeri appear to be best suited to insectivory, whereas taxa such as T. palawanensis and T. gracilis appear to be best adapted to frugivory. Our results suggest that Ptilocercus lowii is characterized by a dentition better adapted to insectivory than the early primate Purgatorius. If P. lowii represents a good modern analogue for primitive euarchontans, this contrast would support models of primate origins that include a shift to greater frugivory.
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Three-Dimensional Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Treeshrew (Scandentia) Lower Molars: Insight into Dental Variation and Systematics.
Anatomical Record-advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 2019Co-Authors: Keegan R Selig, Eric J. Sargis, Mary T SilcoxAbstract:: Scandentia (treeshrews) is an order of small-bodied Indomalayan mammals generally agreed to be a member of Euarchonta with Primates and Dermoptera (colugos). However, intraordinal relationships among treeshrews are less well understood. Although recent studies have begun to clarify treeshrew taxonomy using morphological and molecular datasets, previous analysis of treeshrew dentition has yielded little clarity in terms of species-level relationships within the order. However, these studies made use of character-based methods, scoring traits across the dental arcade, which depend on there being clear differences among taxa that can be encapsulated in coding schemes. Geometric morphometrics has the potential to capture subtler shape variation, so it may be better for examining similarities among closely related taxa whose teeth have a similar bauplan. We used three-dimensional geometric morphometrics on a sample of treeshrew lower second molars and compared the patterns of variation to the results of previous studies. We captured 19 landmarks on a sample of 43 specimens representing 15 species. Using specimen-based principal components analysis and between-group principal component analysis, the two treeshrew families (Tupaiidae and Ptilocercidae) were well separated in morphospace. Moreover, several treeshrew species plot in morphospace according to the clades established in previous molecular work, with closely related species plotting closer to one another than to more distantly related species, suggesting that dental morphology can be useful when studying relationships among treeshrews. As most extinct treeshrews are known only from teeth, understanding morphological patterns in treeshrew molars is important for future work on the evolutionary history of Scandentia. Anat Rec, 302:1154-1168, 2019. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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rule reversal ecogeographical patterns of body size variation in the common treeshrew mammalia Scandentia
Ecology and Evolution, 2018Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Neal Woodman, Virginie Millien, Link E. OlsonAbstract:There are a number of ecogeographical "rules" that describe patterns of geographical variation among organisms. The island rule predicts that populations of larger mammals on islands evolve smaller mean body size than their mainland counterparts, whereas smaller-bodied mammals evolve larger size. Bergmann's rule predicts that populations of a species in colder climates (generally at higher latitudes) have larger mean body sizes than conspecifics in warmer climates (at lower latitudes). These two rules are rarely tested together and neither has been rigorously tested in treeshrews, a clade of small-bodied mammals in their own order (Scandentia) broadly distributed in mainland Southeast Asia and on islands throughout much of the Sunda Shelf. The common treeshrew, Tupaia glis, is an excellent candidate for study and was used to test these two rules simultaneously for the first time in treeshrews. This species is distributed on the Malay Peninsula and several offshore islands east, west, and south of the mainland. Using craniodental dimensions as a proxy for body size, we investigated how island size, distance from the mainland, and maximum sea depth between the mainland and the islands relate to body size of 13 insular T. glis populations while also controlling for latitude and correlation among variables. We found a strong negative effect of latitude on body size in the common treeshrew, indicating the inverse of Bergmann's rule. We did not detect any overall difference in body size between the island and mainland populations. However, there was an effect of island area and maximum sea depth on body size among island populations. Although there is a strong latitudinal effect on body size, neither Bergmann's rule nor the island rule applies to the common treeshrew. The results of our analyses demonstrate the necessity of assessing multiple variables simultaneously in studies of ecogeographical rules.
Link E. Olson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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coming of age morphometric variation in the hand skeletons of juvenile and adult lesser treeshrews Scandentia tupaiidae tupaia minor gunther 1876
Journal of Mammalogy, 2020Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Link E. Olson, Neal Woodman, Ananth MillermurthyAbstract:Morphometric analyses of the manus skeleton have proven useful in understanding species limits and morphological divergence among tupaiid treeshrews (Scandentia: Tupaiidae). Specimens in these studies are typically limited to mature individuals with fully erupted permanent dentition, which eliminates potentially confounding variation attributable to age, but also can exclude rare taxa and small island populations that are poorly represented in systematic collections. To determine the real limits associated with including immature animals in such studies, we used multivariate analyses to study sexual and age variation of the manus skeleton in two allopatric populations of the Lesser Treeshrew (Tupaia minorGunther, 1876) from the Malay Peninsula and from Borneo that we treated as separate samples. Individuals were aged using dental eruption of the permanent dentition. We also recorded the degree of epiphyseal fusion of the bones of the manus based on x-rays of study skins. We then tested our ability to distinguish the two populations using a series of discriminant function analyses of hand measurements from samples that included varying proportions of immature individuals and adults. We found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in hand proportions, permitting us to combine females and males in our samples. Epiphyseal fusion of the metacarpals and phalanges typically occurs by the time the third molars have completely erupted, and fusion of the distal epiphyses of the radius and ulna typically occurs by the time the permanent fourth premolars are in place. There is occasional asynchrony between dental age and epiphyseal fusion. In both populations, the hands of most infants and subadults provide morphometric values within the range of variation of adults, although they are typically distributed in the lower part of the adult range and have the potential to bias the sample toward lower mean size. The inclusion of infants and subadults when attempting to discriminate between two taxa generally results in lower rates of correct classifications, although the rates increase as the sample of immature individuals is limited to older subadults. As a general rule, we recommend that specimens of infants and subadults continue to be excluded from analyses when exploring taxonomic boundaries among treeshrews. In cases of extremely small sample sizes of adults, however, older subadults—in which the permanent third premolars are erupting or in place—can be used with appropriate caution.
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rule reversal ecogeographical patterns of body size variation in the common treeshrew mammalia Scandentia
Ecology and Evolution, 2018Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Neal Woodman, Virginie Millien, Link E. OlsonAbstract:There are a number of ecogeographical "rules" that describe patterns of geographical variation among organisms. The island rule predicts that populations of larger mammals on islands evolve smaller mean body size than their mainland counterparts, whereas smaller-bodied mammals evolve larger size. Bergmann's rule predicts that populations of a species in colder climates (generally at higher latitudes) have larger mean body sizes than conspecifics in warmer climates (at lower latitudes). These two rules are rarely tested together and neither has been rigorously tested in treeshrews, a clade of small-bodied mammals in their own order (Scandentia) broadly distributed in mainland Southeast Asia and on islands throughout much of the Sunda Shelf. The common treeshrew, Tupaia glis, is an excellent candidate for study and was used to test these two rules simultaneously for the first time in treeshrews. This species is distributed on the Malay Peninsula and several offshore islands east, west, and south of the mainland. Using craniodental dimensions as a proxy for body size, we investigated how island size, distance from the mainland, and maximum sea depth between the mainland and the islands relate to body size of 13 insular T. glis populations while also controlling for latitude and correlation among variables. We found a strong negative effect of latitude on body size in the common treeshrew, indicating the inverse of Bergmann's rule. We did not detect any overall difference in body size between the island and mainland populations. However, there was an effect of island area and maximum sea depth on body size among island populations. Although there is a strong latitudinal effect on body size, neither Bergmann's rule nor the island rule applies to the common treeshrew. The results of our analyses demonstrate the necessity of assessing multiple variables simultaneously in studies of ecogeographical rules.
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Taxonomic Boundaries and Craniometric Variation in the Treeshrews (Scandentia, Tupaiidae) from the Palawan Faunal Region
Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 2014Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Kyle K Campbell, Link E. OlsonAbstract:The taxonomy of treeshrews (Order Scandentia) has long been complicated by ambiguous morphological species boundaries, and the treeshrews of the Palawan faunal region of the Philippines are no exception. Four named forms in the genus Tupaia Raffles, 1821, have been described from four island groups based on subtle qualitative morphological characters, and as many as three distinct species have been recognized. A recent molecular phylogenetic study of relationships among Tupaia species suggests that the two currently-recognized treeshrew species from the Palawan faunal region diverged very recently relative to other sister-species divergences within the genus and may not represent species-level taxonomic entities. Here we review the taxonomic and biogeographic histories of the Tupaia taxa from this region. We also collected craniodental data from 133 skulls of all four named forms, representing five island populations, and conducted univariate and multivariate analyses on these data. Our morphometric results are consistent with molecular results, further suggesting that there is insufficient evidence to recognize T . moellendorffi Matschie, 1898, as a separate species from T . palawanensis Thomas, 1894. Our analyses also revealed a craniodentally divergent population from the island of Balabac, which has never been considered a distinct subspecies (or species) from the population on Palawan. These results have conservation implications for the island populations in our analyses, but additional surveys and molecular evidence will be required to fully assess conservation priorities for the treeshrews of the Palawan faunal region.
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island history affects faunal composition the treeshrews mammalia Scandentia tupaiidae from the mentawai and batu islands indonesia
Biological Journal of The Linnean Society, 2014Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Neal Woodman, Natalie C Morningstar, Aspen T Reese, Link E. OlsonAbstract:The Mentawai and Batu Island groups off the west coast of Sumatra have a complicated geological and biogeographical history. The Batu Islands have shared a connection with the Sumatran ‘mainland’ during periods of lowered sea level, whereas the Mentawai Islands, despite being a similar distance from Sumatra, have remained isolated from Sumatra, and probably from the Batu Islands as well. These contrasting historical relationships to Sumatra have influenced the compositions of the respective mammalian faunas of these island groups. Treeshrews (Scandentia, Tupaiidae) from these islands have, at various times in their history, been recognized as geographically circumscribed populations of a broadly distributed Tupaia glis, subspecies, or distinct species. We used multivariate analyses of measurements from the skull and hands to compare the island populations from Siberut (Mentawai Islands) and Tanahbala (Batu Islands) with the geographically adjacent species from the southern Mentawai Islands (T. chrysogaster) and Sumatra (T. ferruginea). Results from both the skull and manus of the Siberut population show that it is most similar to T. chrysogaster, whereas the Tanahbala population is more similar to T. ferruginea, confirming predictions based on island history. These results are further corroborated by mammae counts. Based on these lines of evidence, we include the Siberut population in T. chrysogaster and the Tanahbala population in T. ferruginea. Our conclusions expand the known distributions of both the Mentawai and Sumatran species. The larger geographical range of the endangered T. chrysogaster has conservation implications for this Mentawai endemic, so populations and habitat should be re-evaluated on each of the islands it inhabits. However, until such a re-evaluation is conducted, we recommend that the IUCN Red List status of this species be changed from ‘Endangered’ to ‘Data Deficient’. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 111, 290–304.
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taxonomic boundaries and craniometric variation in the treeshrews Scandentia tupaiidae from the palawan
2014Co-Authors: Eric J. Sargis, Kyle K Campbell, Link E. OlsonAbstract:Abstract The taxonomy of treeshrews (Order Scandentia)has long been complicated by ambiguous morphologicalspecies boundaries, and the treeshrews of the Palawan fau-nal region of the Philippines are no exception. Four namedforms in the genus Tupaia Raffles, 1821, have been de-scribed from four island groups based on subtle qualitativemorphological characters, and as many as three distinctspecies have been recognized. A recent molecular phyloge-netic study of relationships among Tupaia species suggeststhat the two currently-recognized treeshrew species from thePalawan faunal region diverged very recently relative toother sister-species divergences within the genus and maynot represent species-level taxonomic entities. Here we re-view the taxonomic and biogeographic histories of theTupaia taxa from this region. We also collected craniodentaldata from 133 skulls of all four named forms, representingfive island populations, and conducted univariate and mul-tivariate analyses on these data. Our morphometric resultsare consistent with molecular results, further suggesting thatthere is insufficient evidence to recognize T. moellendorffiMatschie, 1898, as a separate species from T. palawanensisThomas, 1894. Our analyses also revealed a craniodentallydivergent population from the island of Balabac, which hasnever been considered a distinct subspecies (or species)from the population on Palawan. These results have conser-vation implications for the island populations in our analy-ses, but additional surveys and molecular evidence will berequired to fully assess conservation priorities for thetreeshrews of the Palawan faunal region.Keywords Cranium .Morphology .Philippines .Skull .Taxonomy .TupaiaIntroductionBackgroundTreeshrews (Scandentia) are an ordinal clade of Indomalayansmall mammals whose interordinal relationships have beenwell studied and debated (reviewed by Sargis 2004, 2007;Sargisetal.2013).Despitethis,thespecies-leveltaxonomyoftreeshrews has not been comprehensively reviewed since thefirst and only monographic account was published a centuryago(Lyon1913).Boutsofsplittingandlumpingasrecentlyasthe 1990s have served to further obscure the taxonomicboundaries and evolutionary history of treeshrews (e.g.,Corbet and Hill 1992; Olson et al. 2005; Sargis et al. 2013).One group in particular, the species complex of TupaiapalawanensisThomas,1894(Sanborn1952),hasexperienceda dynamic taxonomic history of recurrent species elevationsand synonymizations.The T. palawanensis species complex is endemic to thePalawan faunal region of the Philippines (Fig. 1). As cur-rently recognized (Helgen 2005), the monotypic Palawantreeshrew, T. palawanensis, is distributed throughout theisland of Palawan and its associated minor islands (e.g.,Balabac), while the Calamian treeshrew, T. moellendorffiMatschie, 1898, is represented by three subspecies on the
Weerachai Saijuntha - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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morphological and molecular characteristics of malayfilaria sofiani uni mat udin takaoka n g n sp nematoda filarioidea from the common treeshrew tupaia glis diard duvaucel mammalia Scandentia in peninsular malaysia
Parasites & Vectors, 2017Co-Authors: Ahmad Syihan Mat Udin, Takeshi Agatsuma, Weerachai Saijuntha, Kerstin Junker, Sinnadurai Sivanandam, Emilie Lefoulon, Rosli Ramli, Hasmahzaiti Omar, C. MartinAbstract:Background The filarial nematodes Wuchereria bancrofti (Cobbold, 1877), Brugia malayi (Brug, 1927) and B. timori Partono, Purnomo, Dennis, Atmosoedjono, Oemijati & Cross, 1977 cause lymphatic diseases in humans in the tropics, while B. pahangi (Buckley & Edeson, 1956) infects carnivores and causes zoonotic diseases in humans in Malaysia. Wuchereria bancrofti, W. kalimantani Palmieri, Pulnomo, Dennis & Marwoto, 1980 and six out of ten Brugia spp. have been described from Australia, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India. However, the origin and evolution of the species in the Wuchereria-Brugia clade remain unclear. While investigating the diversity of filarial parasites in Malaysia, we discovered an undescribed species in the common treeshrew Tupaia glis Diard & Duvaucel (Mammalia: Scandentia).
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Morphological and molecular characteristics of Malayfilaria sofiani Uni, Mat Udin & Takaoka n. g., n. sp. (Nematoda: Filarioidea) from the common treeshrew Tupaia glis Diard & Duvaucel (Mammalia: Scandentia) in Peninsular Malaysia
BMC, 2017Co-Authors: Shigehiko Uni, Ahmad Syihan Mat Udin, Takeshi Agatsuma, Weerachai Saijuntha, Kerstin Junker, Sinnadurai Sivanandam, Rosli Ramli, Hasmahzaiti Omar, Yvonne Ai-lian Lim, Emilie LefoulonAbstract:Abstract Background The filarial nematodes Wuchereria bancrofti (Cobbold, 1877), Brugia malayi (Brug, 1927) and B. timori Partono, Purnomo, Dennis, Atmosoedjono, Oemijati & Cross, 1977 cause lymphatic diseases in humans in the tropics, while B. pahangi (Buckley & Edeson, 1956) infects carnivores and causes zoonotic diseases in humans in Malaysia. Wuchereria bancrofti, W. kalimantani Palmieri, Pulnomo, Dennis & Marwoto, 1980 and six out of ten Brugia spp. have been described from Australia, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India. However, the origin and evolution of the species in the Wuchereria-Brugia clade remain unclear. While investigating the diversity of filarial parasites in Malaysia, we discovered an undescribed species in the common treeshrew Tupaia glis Diard & Duvaucel (Mammalia: Scandentia). Methods We examined 81 common treeshrews from 14 areas in nine states and the Federal Territory of Peninsular Malaysia for filarial parasites. Once any filariae that were found had been isolated, we examined their morphological characteristics and determined the partial sequences of their mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and 12S rRNA genes. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) region were then cloned into the pGEM-T vector, and the recombinant plasmids were used as templates for sequencing. Results Malayfilaria sofiani Uni, Mat Udin & Takaoka, n. g., n. sp. is described based on the morphological characteristics of adults and microfilariae found in common treeshrews from Jeram Pasu, Kelantan, Malaysia. The Kimura 2-parameter distance between the cox1 gene sequences of the new species and W. bancrofti was 11.8%. Based on the three gene sequences, the new species forms a monophyletic clade with W. bancrofti and Brugia spp. The adult parasites were found in tissues surrounding the lymph nodes of the neck of common treeshrews. Conclusions The newly described species appears most closely related to Wuchereria spp. and Brugia spp., but differs from these in several morphological characteristics. Molecular analyses based on the cox1 and 12S rRNA genes and the ITS1 region indicated that this species differs from both W. bancrofti and Brugia spp. at the genus level. We thus propose a new genus, Malayfilaria, along with the new species M. sofiani
Jing Leng - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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identification of the full length β actin sequence and expression profiles in the tree shrew tupaia belangeri
International Journal of Molecular Medicine, 2015Co-Authors: Yu Zheng, Qihui Wang, Chenxia Yun, Wanli W Smith, Jing LengAbstract:Abstract The tree shrew (Tupaia belangeri) diverges from the primate order (Primates) and is classified as a separate taxonomic group of mammals - Scandentia. It has been suggested that the tree shrew can be used as an animal model for studying human diseases; however, the genomic sequence of the tree shrew is largely unidentified. In the present study, we reported the full-length cDNA sequence of the housekeeping gene, β-actin, in the tree shrew. The amino acid sequence of β-actin in the tree shrew was compared to that of humans and other species; a simple phylogenetic relationship was discovered. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blot analysis further demonstrated that the expression profiles of β-actin, as a general conservative housekeeping gene, in the tree shrew were similar to those in humans, although the expression levels varied among different types of tissue in the tree shrew. Our data provide evidence that the tree shrew has a close phylogenetic association with humans. These findings further enhance the potential that the tree shrew, as a species, may be used as an animal model for studying human disorders.
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identification of glyceraldehyde 3 phosphate dehydrogenase sequence and expression profiles in tree shrew tupaia belangeri
PLOS ONE, 2014Co-Authors: Yu Zheng, Qihui Wang, Chenxia Yun, Yingjun Wang, Wanli W Smith, Jing LengAbstract:The tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri) diverged from the primate order (Primates) and are classified as Scandentia, a separate taxonomic group of mammals. The tree shrew has been suggested to use an animal model to study human disease but the genomic sequences of tree shrew is largely unidentified. Here we identified the full-length cDNA sequence of a housekeeping gene, Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate Dehydrogenase (GAPDH), in tree shrew. We further constructed a phylogenetic family tree base on GAPDH molecules of various organisms and compared GAPDH sequences with human and other small experimental animals. These study revealed that tree shrew was closer to human than mouse, rat, rabbit and guinea pig. The Quantitative Reverse Transcription PCR and western blot analysis further demonstrated that GAPDH expressed in various tissues in tree shrew as a general conservative housekeeping proteins as in human. Our findings provide the novel genetic knowledge of the tree shrew and strong evidences that tree shrew can be an experimental model system to study human disorders.
C. Martin - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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morphological and molecular characteristics of malayfilaria sofiani uni mat udin takaoka n g n sp nematoda filarioidea from the common treeshrew tupaia glis diard duvaucel mammalia Scandentia in peninsular malaysia
Parasites & Vectors, 2017Co-Authors: Ahmad Syihan Mat Udin, Takeshi Agatsuma, Weerachai Saijuntha, Kerstin Junker, Sinnadurai Sivanandam, Emilie Lefoulon, Rosli Ramli, Hasmahzaiti Omar, C. MartinAbstract:Background The filarial nematodes Wuchereria bancrofti (Cobbold, 1877), Brugia malayi (Brug, 1927) and B. timori Partono, Purnomo, Dennis, Atmosoedjono, Oemijati & Cross, 1977 cause lymphatic diseases in humans in the tropics, while B. pahangi (Buckley & Edeson, 1956) infects carnivores and causes zoonotic diseases in humans in Malaysia. Wuchereria bancrofti, W. kalimantani Palmieri, Pulnomo, Dennis & Marwoto, 1980 and six out of ten Brugia spp. have been described from Australia, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India. However, the origin and evolution of the species in the Wuchereria-Brugia clade remain unclear. While investigating the diversity of filarial parasites in Malaysia, we discovered an undescribed species in the common treeshrew Tupaia glis Diard & Duvaucel (Mammalia: Scandentia).
