Unraveling the anatomical and molecular adaptations of primate touch

触摸是人类和其他动物与世界互动的基本方式。精确的触摸，使我们能够用手来检测纹理，形状，振动和运动，对人类和灵长类动物的感官生物学和健康至关重要。虽然精确触摸对于检测水果成熟度、运动以及制作和使用工具等任务至关重要，但相对于其他感官，人们对它的了解仍然很少。该项目使用多学科方法来研究灵长类动物和其他哺乳动物之间精确触摸的变化和作用。这项工作的结果旨在确定与精确触摸变化相关的生态因素，并有助于我们理解触摸在灵长类动物和人类感官生物学，生态学和进化中的作用。该项目可以通过亚利桑那州自然历史博物馆的互动展览增加公众对感官系统和科学的理解。此外，该项目还支持和扩大国际研究合作和STEM研究培训，以本科生和研究生。重要的是，该研究团队利用一个独特的采样机会，从野生哺乳动物物种中生成组织和RNA的生物库，其中许多物种濒临灭绝，研究不足，并将数据提供给全球研究界。这个多学科项目涉及四个目标：（1）确定精确触摸的基因型-表型关系;（2）量化饮食、手的灵活性和工具使用对精确触摸的影响;（3）量化树栖性与陆生性对精确触摸的影响;（4）评估灵长类动物是精确触摸的唯一来源的说法。该项目旨在解决长期存在的关于驱动早期灵长类特征起源的选择性因素的进化问题，以及关于人类谱系中高度敏感的精确触摸进化的问题。研究小组使用转录组测序、组织学和形态计量学来比较触摸相关基因的表达与触摸受体细胞的估计（即，机械感受器）密度和形态在不同组织内的个人和物种之间。该项目的重点是灵长类物种，跨越分类学分支（strepsirrhines，platyrrhines，cercopithecoids，hominoids）和生态（饮食，活动模式，底物使用，工具使用），并将这些与非灵长类哺乳动物模型进行比较，以调查灵长类特征的趋同进化。研究小组与兽医合作，从18种哺乳动物中收集了个体的组织样本。该团队还收集了关于研究物种如何使用精确触摸与食物互动并在环境中移动的行为数据。此外，研究小组利用公开的基因组数据库，以调查自然选择作用于哺乳动物触摸基因的历史。该项目由生物人类学（SBE）和生理机制和生物力学（BIO）计划共同支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Touch is a fundamental way that humans and other animals navigate and interact with their world. Precision touch, which allows us to use our hands to detect texture, shape, vibration, and movement, is vitally important for human and primate sensory biology and health. While precision touch is critical for tasks like detecting fruit ripeness, locomotion, and making and using tools, it is still poorly understood relative to other senses. This project uses a multidisciplinary approach to investigate variation in, and the role of, precision touch across primates and other mammals. The results of this work aim to identify ecological factors associated with variation in precision touch and contribute to our understanding of the role of touch in primate and human sensory biology, ecology, and evolution. This project can increase public understanding of sensory systems and science through an interactive exhibit at the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Furthermore, the project supports and expands international research collaborations and STEM research training to undergraduate and graduate students. Critically, the research team leverages a unique sampling opportunity to generate a biobank of tissues and RNA from wild mammal species, many of which are endangered and poorly studied, and make the data available to the global research community.This multidisciplinary project addresses four aims: (1) identify genotype-phenotype relationships for precision touch; (2) quantify the effects of diet, manual dexterity, and tool use on precision touch; (3) quantify the effects of arboreality vs. terrestriality on precision touch, and (4) evaluate claims that the Primate Order is uniquely derived for precision touch. The project aims to address long-standing evolutionary questions regarding selective factors driving the origin of early primate features as well as questions about the evolution of highly sensitive precision touch in the human lineage. The research team uses transcriptome sequencing, histology, and morphometrics to compare the expression of touch-related genes with estimates of touch receptor cell (i.e., mechanoreceptor) densities and morphology in different tissues within individuals and between species. The project focuses on primate species that span taxonomic clades (strepsirrhines, platyrrhines, cercopithecoids, hominoids) and ecologies (diet, activity pattern, substrate use, tool use), and compares these to non-primate mammalian models targeted to investigate the convergent evolution of primate traits. The research team collects tissue samples from individuals across 18 mammal species in collaboration with veterinarians. The team also collects behavioral data on how the study species use precision touch to interact with food items and move about their environment. Additionally, the research team leverages publicly-available genomic databases in order to investigate the history of natural selection acting on touch genes across mammals. This project is jointly supported by the Biological Anthropology (SBE) and Physiological Mechanisms and Biomechanics (BIO) programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.