Tiger, lion and domestic cat genes not so di!

erent

Genomes of big felines provide insight into their evolution
BY TINA HESMAN SAEY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013



Tigers and their relatives have hit on the right combination of genes to
make them successful hunters, scientists have learned from studying the
DNA of some of the biggest big cats.

Along with teasing out the Siberian tigers secrets, an international team
of scientists also examined the genomes of a white Bengal tiger, a snow
leopard and two African lions, one of them from a rare white female. The
vulnerable and endangered animals genomes, reported September 17 in
Nature Communications, are the start of a database that is important for
understanding the cats evolutionary past and for preserving their future,
says Lisette Waits, a conservation geneticist at the University of Idaho,
who was not involved in the study. Its impressive, exciting work, she
says.

Already the project is shedding light on how tigers, lions and snow
leopards became top-tier predators and adapted to wildly di"erent
environments.

All present cat species last shared a common ancestor about 11 million
years ago. Usually genomes get scrambled as species evolve, says Jong
Bhak, a bioinformatician at the Genome Research Foundation in Suwon,
South Korea, who was one of the study leaders. But when the team
compared the genome of a 9-year-old Siberian tiger named TaeGeuk to
that of domestic cats, the researchers found few big di"erences. That
probably means that cats both big and domestic are very well adapted,
successful evolutionary machines, Bhak says.

But many subtler changes set big cats apart from other animals. Big cats
share 1,376 genetic changes not found in other animals and people, the
researchers discovered. Among those genes are many related to
digesting meat not a surprise, Bhak says, given that cats are obligate
carnivores. Genes involved in muscle strength, sense of smell, visual
perception and nervous system development are evolving rapidly in
Siberian tigers, the team found.

Snow leopards displayed two mutations that may help them live high in
the mountains of central Asia, where oxygen is in short supply. Di"erent
changes in the same genes, called EGLN1 and EPAS1, have been
credited with helping Tibetan people adapt to live at high altitudes. And
naked mole rats, which also live with little oxygen, carry yet another
alteration to one of those genes.

Leopards arent the only copycats. The DNA of an African white lion and
white Bengal tiger revealed that both cats pale coats are due to
mutations in a gene that also gives some domestic cats white fur. That
gene, called TYR, contains a mutation in the white tigers di"erent from the
one that bleaches the coats of white lions.

The data can help scientists monitor genetic diversity and aid in
conservation e"orts, Waits says. Snow leopards have low levels of
genetic diversity, the researchers found, nearly half that of the other big
cat species. Low genetic diversity can be a sign that a species is heading
toward extinction.

Cats in general have low levels of diversity, says Marcella Kelly, a
population ecologist at Virginia Tech. I get more worried if an animal has
lost diversity recently, she says. The researchers have DNA of only one
snow leopard, so they dont know whether the animals naturally have low
levels or if their genetic diversity has taken a dive.

Editor's note: This story was updated on September 26, 2013, to clarify
that some of the big cats in the study are classied as vulnerable, not
endangered.

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not-so-di!erent