Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence

By Aylwyn Scally, J. Dutheil, LaDeana W. Hillier, Greg Jordan, I. Goodhead, Javier Herrero, A. Hobolth, Tuuli Lappalainen, T. Mailund, Tomàs Marquès-Bonet and 61 more. Nature, 2012

719 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Gorillas are humans’ closest living relatives after chimpanzees, and are of comparable importance for the study of human origins and evolution. Here we present the assembly and analysis of a genome sequence for the western lowland gorilla, and compare the whole genomes of all extant great ape genera. We propose a synthesis of genetic and fossil evidence consistent with placing the human–chimpanzee and human–chimpanzee–gorilla speciation events at approximately 6 and 10 million years ago. In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression. A comparison of protein coding genes reveals approximately 500 genes showing accelerated evolution on each of the gorilla, human and chimpanzee lineages, and evidence for parallel acceleration, particularly of genes involved in hearing. We also compare the western and eastern gorilla species, estimating an average sequence divergence time 1.75 million years ago, but with evidence for more recent genetic exchange and a population bottleneck in the eastern species. The use of the genome sequence in these and future analyses will promote a deeper understanding of great ape biology and evolution.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Paleontology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7d2f38bc92339a81b4cb6804bc8df36ee38208db

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Citations in the corpus

Blood ties: ABO is a trans-species polymorphism in primates (2012, neutral): “, indicating a case of incomplete lineage sorting (49).”
The Genome 10K Project: A Way Forward (2015, neutral): “Polypteriformes Polyodontidae Acipenseriformes Hagfishes (71, 0) Lampreys (43, 2) Sharks, rays (1,199, 2) Gars (7, 1) Bowfins (1, 1) Teleosts (30,195, 60) Sturgeons (26, 1) Paddlefish (2, 0) Bichirs (12, 1) Coelacanths (2, 2) Lungfishes (6, 0) Amphibians (6,570, 12) Reptiles, birds, mammals (24,141,”
Ensembl comparative genomics resources (2016, background): “Indeed, the Ensembl comparative genomics resources have contributed directly to the analysis and interpretation of several genome sequencing projects including the orang-utan (60), gorilla (61), tammar wallaby (62), chicken (63), turkey (64), zebra finch (65) and lamprey (66).”
Ensembl comparative genomics resources (2016, background): “Indeed, the Ensembl comparative genomics resources have contributed directly to the analysis and interpretation of several genome sequencing projects including the orang-utan (60), gorilla (61), tammar wallaby (62), chicken (63), turkey (64), zebra finch (65) and lamprey (66).”
Using the Neandertal genome to study the evolution of small insertions and deletions in modern humans (2017, methodology): “2001) (GhRch37/hg19) and six primates (chimpanzee [45] (panTro4), gorilla [46] (gorGor3), orangutan [47] (ponAbe2), gibbon [48] (nomLeu1), rhesus macaque [49] (rheMac3) and marmoset [50] (calJac3)) were downloaded from the UCSC genome browser [51] and converted into MAF format.”
The Human Gene Mutation Database: building a comprehensive mutation repository for clinical and molecular genetics, diagnostic testing and personalized genomic medicine (2013, positive): “They have also been used in the comparative analysis of several orthologous genomes including gorilla (Scally et al. 2012), cynomolgus and Chinese macaque (Yanetal.”
The Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD) and Its Exploitation in the Fields of Personalized Genomics and Molecular Evolution (2012, background): “…projects including the sequencing of the genomes of Rattus norvegicus (Gibbs et al., 2004), the Indian macaque (Rhesus Macaque Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, 2007), the Chinese rhesus and cynomolgus macaques (Yan et al., 2011), and most recently, the gorilla (Scally et al., 2012).”
The Human Gene Mutation Database: towards a comprehensive repository of inherited mutation data for medical research, genetic diagnosis and next-generation sequencing studies (2017, positive): “They have also been used in the comparative analysis of orthologous sequences in model genomes including those of gorilla (Scally et al. 2012), mountain gorilla (Xue et al. 2015), cynomolgus and Chinese macaques (Yan et al. 2011), Rhesus macaque (Rhesus Macaque Genome Sequencing and Analysis…”