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    Home > Biochemistry News > Biotechnology News > Galapagos slugs have evolved from abnormal genes to be the only one in the world that can't fly.

    Galapagos slugs have evolved from abnormal genes to be the only one in the world that can't fly.

    • Last Update: 2020-08-30
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Fernandina, at the westernmost tip of the Galapagos Islands, is an pristine area.
    it is often submerged by lava flows that boil its waters.
    , however, this did not stop a strange bird, the Galapagos, from shing home on Fernandina: the only one in the world that could not fly.
    now, a new study has sheds new questions about how the seabird, with its short, thick wings, loses its ability to fly, using dozens of abnormal genes also found in humans with a variety of rare bone diseases.
    that for most birds, not flying is a serious problem.
    , as Charles Darwin deduced during his famous trip to the Galapagos Islands, isolation would allow species with this apparent disadvantage to survive and grow.
    for modern scientists, the biggest problem is how animals such as the flight-in-flight dragonflies first became like this.
    , and penguins, ostrich, rudders, and ostrich, which evolved more than 50 million years ago, the Galapagos Islands only 2 million years ago "went the other way" with their flying cousins.
    of this age means that there is relatively little genetic variation that distinguishes between high-flying crickets and clumsy close relatives walking on land.
    , a geneticist at the University of California, Los Angeles, began studying how flight-in flight slugs evolved after visiting the Galapagos Islands.
    Kruglyak did not find conclusive research related to the giant bird, so he set out to sequence the dna of the moth.
    samples used in the study came from the lab of University of Missouri ecologist Patricia Parker and the St. Louis Zoo.
    Parker and her team spent several years in the Galapagos Islands, sleeping outdoors and working on modified fishing boats, eventually collecting more than 20,000 blood samples from the island's animals.
    , Kruglyak's team then compared the DNA of the Galapagos Islands slugs with that of three other related birds, the double crown, the new tropical and the sea otters.
    because many developmental genes play multiple roles, Kruglyak's team concluded that the genetic factors that cause the dragonflies not to fly could not be found in protein mutations that had fatal consequences.
    instead, they began looking for irregular patterns in a large number of DNA fragments between genes known as non-coding regions in order to find clues as to how the same genes might be regulated differently.
    , however, the pair did not produce results.
    , they turned back to the coding region, the gene that produces the protein, in search of mutations that could alter the protein's ability to function properly.
    they found dozens of mutated genes in the Galapagos Islands.
    have confirmed that these genes cause rare bone diseases known as cilic diseases in humans.
    the disease is usually characterized by skull deformities, short limbs, and a small chest cavity.
    the Galapagos islands have shorter wings and abnormally small chest bones, the researchers suspect the link is obvious.
    they reported the findings in the journal Science.
    human-related cilic diseases are caused by genetic mutations that affect cile.
    this type of cilic hair is a hair-like extension that is used to transmit chemical information between cells that control the development of vertebrates.
    these signals lose their balance, the body grows in a visible and abnormal way.
    example, Sensenbrenner syndrome is the united states.
    this is a rare disease, reportedly in only a few dozen patients, characterized by a long skull, short limbs and fingers, narrow chest cavity and respiratory problems.
    ift122 gene associated with Sensenbrenner syndrome has developed a similar mutation in the Galapagos islands.
    another Cix1 gene responsible for cile production seems to have played a role in growing clumsy wings.
    , the researchers experimented with Ift122 and Cus1.
    they inserted the mutated Ift122 gene into soil ticks that use cili hair to detect their surroundings.
    compared to their normal counterparts, the mutant worms form a thylass due to the failure of the cilia function, rather than being scattered in a petri dish environment.
    when they inserted the Cix1 gene from the moth into mouse cells that grow and produce cartilage in a petri dish, these cells develop stunting.
    , Kruglyak says the association between these genes and not flying is still a hypothesis.
    " ideal test would be for one Galapagos islander to fly or for another to fail to fly.
    ," Kruglyak said, one day this could be achieved with tools like CRISPR gene editing.
    " as technology improves, we can test these genetic mutations in birds and observe the development of wings.
    study is important and exciting because it provides a new mechanism for how not being able to fly may have evolved.
    , a biologist at the University of Montana, said most researchers suspect that changes that cause birds to retain their early characteristics during their transition to adulthood have led to a loss of ability to fly.
    the Galapagos Islands, where clumsy wings make it look like an over-grown young bird, is a prime example.
    .
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