Project description:Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) is the only extant species of the genus Crocuta, which once occupied a much wider range during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. However, its origin and evolutionary history is somewhat contentious due to discordances being found between morphological, nuclear, and mitochondrial data. Due to the limited molecular data from east Asian Crocuta, and the difficulty of extracting ancient DNA from this area, here we present proteomic analysis of cave hyenas from three locations in northern China. This marks the first proteomic data generated from cave hyenas, adding new molecular data to the east Asian populations. Phylogenetic analysis based on these protein sequences reveals two different groups of cave hyenas in east Asia, one of which could not be distinguished from modern spotted hyenas from northern Africa, tentatively the result of previously suggested gene flow between these lineages. With developments of instrumentation and analytical methods, proteomics holds promising potential for the phylogenetic reconstruction of ancient fauna previously thought to be unreachable using ancient DNA.
Project description:Affymetrix single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array data were collected to study genome-wide patterns of genomic variation across a broad geographical range of Island Southeast Asian populations. This region has experienced an extremely complex admixture history. Initially settled ~50,000 years ago, Island Southeast Asia has since been the recipient of multiple waves of population movements, most recently by Austronesian-speaking groups ultimately from Neolithic mainland Asia and later arrivals during the historic era from India and the Middle East. We have genotyped SNPs in ~500 individuals from 30 populations spanning this entire geographical region, from communities close to mainland Asia through to New Guinea. Particular attention has been paid to genomic data that are informative for population history, including the role of recent arrivals during the historic era and admixture with archaic hominins.
Project description:RNA from vastus lateralis of healthy young (21-31 year old) and older (62-77 year old) men. Signal data normalized to mean intensity of 500 over all probes sets. Analysis done with Affymetrix Microarray Suite 5.0 software.
Project description:Asian salamander Hynobiidae is commonly observed in the Far East Asia regions, including Korea, Japan, China, and the eastern region of Russia. In Korea, there are four Hynobiidae species known to be lived: Hynobius leechii, Hynobius quelpaertensis, Hynobius yangi, and recently reported Hynobius unisacculus. However, even H. leechii which is broadly colonized in Korea peninsula seems to have a new species candidate, which has distinctive genetic and phenotypic characteristics. Genomic resources are essential to understand the current status of these species, but due to the large size of their genomes (about 16 to 20 Gb), it is not easy to analyze. To reveal the genomic characteristics of these species, we constructed more than ten thousands of protein-coding gene sequences from multiple samples of each species, using the de novo transcriptome assembly approach from RNA-Seq data, confirming their taxonomic relationship which was reported based on mitochondrial DNA and marker genes. Also, by comparing previously reported transcriptome of Hynobius chinensis and Hynobius retardatus, lived in China and Japan, respectively, we found that Korean species have unique genetic signatures. By comparing vertebrate model organism genes, we reported Hynobidaii specific proteins. These data would be a useful resource to study other Caudata species in the future. This research was supported by the National Institute of Biological Resources, Republic of Korea, under the project "Genetic diversity of animal resources” (NIBR201703203 and NIBR201803101).
Project description:H5N1 subtype highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has been spreading to Asia, Eurasia and African coutries. An original or six of recombinant H5N1 subtype influenza viruses with varying survivability were infected to chickens for elucidating genes correlated with pathogenicity.
Project description:We genotyped 45 new samples from 4 populations of Northwest India and combined it with previously published data to characterize the population structure of modern Northwest Indian populations in the context of their geographic neighbors across South Asia and West Eurasia.
Project description:Poor preservation of collagen in dry and/or arid environments has hindered the application of Zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) analysis in many regions of the world. As a result many zooarchaeological investigations have relied exclusively on morphological assessment of fragmentary remains due to the inadequate preservation of biomolecules. The climatic conditions of Southwest Asia include extreme temperature fluctuations unconducive to preservation of proteins and DNA. We performed zooarchaeological analysis of remains from the 10,000-year-old site of Shkārat Msaied in Jordan and sub-sampled twenty-eight petrous bones, the hardest bone in the mammalian skeleton, for species identification by ZooMS. Using an unconventional and simplified extraction protocol we call Tryps-IN, in which digestion was performed without removal of the demineralising EDTA, we taxonomically identified several fragments, outperforming an established ZooMS work-flow. A subset of identifications was subsequently confirmed using liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) protein sequencing. The new methodology presented here opens the possibility of further bioarchaeological investigation of other fragmentary faunal assemblages within this region of archaeological significance.