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Despite the substantial role that chickens have played in human societies across the world, both the geographic and temporal origins of their domestication remain controversial. To address this issue, we analyzed 863 genomes from a worldwide sampling of chickens and representatives of all four species of wild jungle fowl and each of the five subspecies of red jungle fowl (RJF). Our study suggests that domestic chickens were initially derived from the RJF subspecies Gallus gallus spadiceus whose present-day distribution is predominantly in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Myanmar. Following their domestication, chickens were translocated across Southeast and South Asia where they interbred locally with both RJF subspecies and other jungle fowl species. In addition, our results show that the White Leghorn chicken breed possesses a mosaic of divergent ancestries inherited from other subspecies of RJF. Despite the strong episodic gene flow from geographically divergent lineages of jungle fowls, our analyses show that domestic chickens undergo genetic adaptations that underlie their unique behavioral, morphological and reproductive traits. Our study provides novel insights into the evolutionary history of domestic chickens and a valuable resource to facilitate ongoing genetic and functional investigations of the world's most numerous domestic animal.
Chickens/genetics , Genome , Phylogeny , Animal Distribution , Animals , Animals, Domestic/genetics , Asia , Domestication , Gene Pool , Geography , Likelihood Functions , Poultry/genetics , Selection, Genetic
We analyzed the whole genomes of cecum microbiomes of Ethiopian indigenous chickens from two distinct geographical zones: Afar (AF) district (Dulecha, 730 m above sea level) and Amhara (AM) district (Menz Gera Midir, 3300 m). Through metagenomic analysis we found that microbial populations were mainly dominated by Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. We identified 2210 common genes in the two groups. LEfSe showed that the distribution of Coprobacter, Geobacter, Cronobacter, Alloprevotella, and Dysgonomonas were more abundant in AF than AM. Analyses using KEGG, eggNOG, and CAZy databases indicated that the pathways of metabolism, genetic information processing, environmental information processing, and cellular process were significantly enriched. Functional abundance was found to be associated with the nutrient absorption and microbial localization of indigenous chickens. We also investigated antibiotic resistant genes and found antibiotics like LSM, cephalosporin, and tetracycline were significantly more abundant in AF than AM.
Chickens/microbiology , Drug Resistance, Bacterial , Gastrointestinal Microbiome , Metagenome , Animals , Bacteroidetes/genetics , Bacteroidetes/pathogenicity , Cecum/microbiology , Ethiopia , Firmicutes/genetics , Firmicutes/pathogenicity , Metagenomics/methods , Whole Genome Sequencing/methods
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the action mechanism of the immune active components of sappon wood (SWE) for antagonizing reject reaction by observing the influence of its ethyl acetate extract on mRNA expression of myocardial GrB in rat model of allogenic ectopic cardiac transplantation.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Animal model of abdominal cardiac ectopic transplantation was established taking Wistar rat as the donor and SD rat as the receptor. The successfully modeled rats were randomly divided into the model group, the SWE group and the CsA group. GrB mRNA expression was detected by RT-PCR method and myocardial pathomorphologic picture was observed in routine.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The pathologic changes in the SWE group (23 scores) and the CsA group (14 scores) were milder than in the model group (31 scores), the former two could markedly alleviate the myocardial pathologic injury (P<0.05, P<0.01). The GrB mRNA expression in the model group was 1.3000 +/- 0.1207, the SWE group 0. 7070 +/- 0.1215, and the CsA group 0.6700 +/- 0.0997, respectively; compared with the model group, the latter two could obviously down-regulate the expression of GrB mRNA (P<0.01) and no significant difference was found between the latter two groups (P>0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>SWE could alleviate the pathologic change, down-regulate the mRNA expression of myocardial GrB in allogenic ectopic transplanted myocardium of rats, it is possibly one of the factors for its antagonizing effect against reject reaction.</p>
Animals , Male , Rats , Acetates , Chemistry , Caesalpinia , Chemistry , Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic , Graft Rejection , Drug Therapy , Granzymes , Genetics , Heart , Heart Transplantation , Allergy and Immunology , Models, Animal , Myocardium , Metabolism , Pathology , Plant Extracts , Pharmacology , Therapeutic Uses , RNA, Messenger , Genetics , Metabolism , Transplantation, Homologous
