Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

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Nature Research, Nature, 7517(513), p. 195-201, 2014

DOI: 10.1038/nature13679

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Gibbon genome and the fast karyotype evolution of small apes.

Journal article published in 2014 by B. ten Hallers, Lucia Carbone, Harris Ra, R. Alan Harris ORCID, Veeramah Kr, Sante Gnerre, Krishna R. Veeramah, Belen Lorente-Galdos, John Huddleston, Meyer Tj, Thomas J. Meyer, Batzer Ma, Javier Herrero ORCID, Christian Roos, Campbell Ms and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Gibbons are small arboreal apes that display an accelerated rate of evolutionary chromosomal rearrangement and occupy a key node in the primate phylogeny between Old World monkeys and great apes. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a northern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) genome. We describe the propensity for a gibbon-specific retrotransposon (LAVA) to insert into chromosome segregation genes and alter transcription by providing a premature termination site, suggesting a possible molecular mechanism for the genome plasticity of the gibbon lineage. We further show that the gibbon genera (Nomascus, Hylobates, Hoolock and Symphalangus) experienced a near-instantaneous radiation 5 million years ago, coincident with major geographical changes in southeast Asia that caused cycles of habitat compression and expansion. Finally, we identify signatures of positive selection in genes important for forelimb develop-ment (TBX5) and connective tissues (COL1A1) that may have been involved in the adaptation of gibbons to their arboreal habitat. Gibbons (Hylobatidae) are critically endangered 1 small apes that inhabit the tropical forests of southeast Asia (Fig. 1) and belong to the super-family Hominoidea along with great apes and humans. In the primate phylogeny, gibbons diverged between Old World monkeys and great apes, providing a unique perspective from which to study the origins of hominoid characteristics. Gibbons have several distinctive traits, the most striking of which is the unusually high number of large-scale chromosomal rearrangements in comparison to the inferred ancestral ape karyotype 2