COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Muroid Rodent Phylogenetics Using Multiple Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genes

佛罗里达州立大学的Scott Steppan博士和田纳西大学健康科学中心的Ronald Adkins博士获得了一笔赠款，用于研究最多样化的哺乳动物家族(鼠总科)的进化关系，其中包括普通的老鼠、老鼠和仓鼠。尽管鼠总科动物包括所有哺乳动物的四分之一，对农业、疾病和生物医学研究具有巨大的重要性，但这些世界性物种之间的关系非常不清楚。他们将使用计算机分析来自270多个物种的许多基因的DNA序列，重建鼠总科的进化家谱。实验室的小鼠和大鼠是人类疾病的主要研究模型，已经对它们的完整基因组进行了测序。此外，鼠总科的成员携带着许多人类疾病，如鼠疫和汉坦病毒，可以占到食草动物造成的农业损失的一半以上。值得注意的是，鼠首乌贼在世界各地的分布赋予了它们在了解塑造世界的气候、地质和生态变化方面的独特作用。这些物种的进化树将阐明啮齿动物区别于其他哺乳动物(包括人类)的大规模基因组变化，将极大地促进我们理解它们作为生物医学模型和疾病媒介的角色，并将有助于确定地质和气候事件如何对进化过程做出贡献。

Drs. Scott Steppan (Florida State University) and Ronald Adkins (University of Tennessee Health Science Center) have received a grant to study the evolutionary relationships of the most diverse family of mammals (Muroidea) that includes the common mouse, rat, and hamster. Although Muroidea includes one fourth of all mammals and has enormous importance to agriculture, disease, and biomedical research, the relationships among these worldwide species are extremely unclear. They will reconstruct the evolutionary family tree of Muroidea using computer analysis of DNA sequences for many genes from over 270 species. The laboratory mouse and rat are the premier research models for human disease and have had their complete genomes sequenced. Additionally, members of Muroidea harbor many human diseases, such as plague and hantavirus, and can account for over half of the agricultural losses due to herbivores. Significantly, the worldwide distribution of Muroidea grants them a unique role in understanding the climatological, geological, and ecological changes that have shaped the world. The evolutionary tree of these species will clarify the large-scale genomic changes that distinguish rodents from other mammals (including humans) and will greatly facilitate our understanding of their roles as biomedical models and disease vectors, and will help determine how geological and climatological events contribute to the evolutionary process.