Dataset Information

Assessing the manipulative potentials of monkeys, apes and humans from hand proportions: implications for hand evolution.

ABSTRACT: The hand structure possesses a greater potential for performing manipulative skills than is typically observed, whether in humans or non-human anthropoids. However, a precise assessment of the potential manipulative skills of hands has been challenging, which hampers our understanding of the evolution of manipulative abilities in anthropoid hands. Here, we establish a functional model to quantitatively infer the manipulative potentials of anthropoid hands based on hand proportions. Our results reveal a large disparity of manipulative potentials among anthropoid hands. From the aspect of hand proportions, the human hand has the best manipulative potential among anthropoids. However, the species with a manipulative potential closer to that of humans are not our nearest relatives, chimpanzees, but rather, are certain monkey species. In combination with the phylogenetically informed morphometric analyses, our results suggest that the morphological changes of non-human anthropoid hands did not coevolve with the brain to facilitate the manipulative ability during the evolutionary process, although the manipulative ability is a survival skill. The changes in non-human anthropoid hands may have more likely evolved under selective pressure for locomotion than manipulation.

SUBMITTER: Liu MJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5136595 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Assessing the manipulative potentials of monkeys, apes and humans from hand proportions: implications for hand evolution.

Liu Ming-Jin MJ Xiong Cai-Hua CH Hu Di D

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20161101 1843

The hand structure possesses a greater potential for performing manipulative skills than is typically observed, whether in humans or non-human anthropoids. However, a precise assessment of the potential manipulative skills of hands has been challenging, which hampers our understanding of the evolution of manipulative abilities in anthropoid hands. Here, we establish a functional model to quantitatively infer the manipulative potentials of anthropoid hands based on hand proportions. Our results r ...[more]

PMID: 27903877

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Project description:The loss of the tail is one of the main anatomical evolutionary changes to have occurred along the lineage leading to humans and to the “anthropomorphous apes”. This morphological evolution in the ancestral hominoids has long been considered to have accommodated a characteristic style of locomotion and contributed to the evolution of bipedalism in humans. Yet, the genetic mechanism that facilitated tail-loss evolution in hominoids remains unknown. Primate genome sequencing projects have made possible the inference of causal links between genotypic and phenotypic changes, and enabled the search for hominoid-specific genetic elements controlling tail development. Here, we present evidence that an individual Alu element insertion in the genome of the hominoid ancestor may have contributed to tail-loss evolution. We demonstrate that this Alu element – inserted into an intron of the TBXT gene (also called T or Brachyury ) – pairs with a neighboring ancestral Alu element encoded in the reverse genomic orientation and leads to a hominoid-specific alternative splicing event. To study the effect of this splicing event, we generated multiple mouse models that express both full length and exon-skipped isoforms of mouse Tbxt, mimicking expression pattern of its hominoid ortholog TBXT. We found that mice expressing both Tbxt isoforms can exhibit a complete absence of the tail or a shortened tail, depending on the relative abundance of Tbxt isoforms expressed at the embryonic tail bud, supporting the notion that the exon-skipped transcript is sufficient to induce a tail-loss phenotype. We further noted that mice expressing the exon-skipped Tbxt isoform – both in heterozygous and homozygous forms – may develop a neural tube defect condition, which affects ~1/1,000 human neonates. We speculate that tail loss evolution along the hominoid lineage may be associated with an adaptive cost of potential neural tube defects that may continue to affect human health today.

Dataset Information

Assessing the manipulative potentials of monkeys, apes and humans from hand proportions: implications for hand evolution.

Publications

Assessing the manipulative potentials of monkeys, apes and humans from hand proportions: implications for hand evolution.

Similar Datasets

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