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| Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also known as prion diseases, are a class of fatal neurodegenerative maladies that affect various mammals, including cattle, sheep, mink, cervids, and human. During the past two decades, the epidemics of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its human form termed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) have drawn special interests to the study of prion borne ... |
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| Hedgehog (Hh) signaling plays pivotal roles in embryonic development and adult tissue homeostasis in species ranging from Drosophila to mammals. Malfunction of this pathway has been implicated in numerous human disorders including congenital anomalies and cancers, such as basal cell carcinoma, Medulloblastoma, lung cancer, liver cancer, etc. The Hh signaling is transduced by Smoothened (Smo), a seven-transmembrane... |
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| Erinaceidae is a family of small mammals that include spiny hedgehogs(Erinaceinae)，hairy moonrats and gymnures(Galericinae).Hedgehogs(erinaceines)are small,spiny nocturnal mammals that live throughout Eurasia and Africa.
The closest living relatives to hedgehogs are moonrats and gymnures(galericines)which are confined to the damp forests in Southeast Asia.
They are the oldest known living mammals with their evolu... |
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| Horizontal gene transfer(HGT),the transfer of genetic material between organisms other than vertical gene transfer(transfer from the parents to offspring),is an important force in speciation and genome evolution.
Almost all of these gene families are distributed in diverse animals,suggesting that they were mostly acquired by the common ancestor of animals.
This work has been officially published on BMC Evolutionar... |
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| Such a unique population history made it a good model to study selection and random drift,especially difference in artificial selection and natural selection.
This result is a little strange,because the ecological niche has changed greatly after domestication and the olfactory receptor gene family is under strong selection,the segregating pseudogenes are important genes in the birth-and-death process for olfactory... |
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