New insights into mammalian evolution

Despite having a common ancestor, different mammalian species have acquired their unique characteristics by repurposing functional elements through gene regulation, says a study.

"What we have shown is that evolution repurposes things that exist in all species, to make each species unique," explained Paul Flicek from European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Britain.

For the study, the researchers compared gene regulation in liver cells from 20 key species including the naked mole rat, human, Tasmanian devil, dolphin and sei whale.

"By looking at gene promoters and enhancers in many different mammals, we demonstrated that species-specific enhancers come from ancient DNA - that evolution captures DNA that has been around for a long time, and uses it for gene regulation in specific tissues," Flicek added.

Evolution has two ways to turn changes in the genome into differences between species: it can change a protein sequence, or it can change the way promoters or enhancers control that protein's expression.

In some cases evolution uses both strategies at once, the findings showed.

When amino acid sequences evolve very quickly, important regulation changes occur at the same time, the protein-coding sequence and the corresponding regulatory sequence change synergistically.

"This research has given us new insights into mammalian evolution," Duncan Odom from Cancer Research UK-Cambridge Institute (CRUK CI), University of Cambridge, noted.

The findings were published in the journal Cell.