Unraveling the anatomical and molecular adaptations of primate touch

触摸是人类和其他动物导航和与世界互动的基本方式。精确触摸，使我们能够用我们的手来检测纹理，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。虽然精确触觉对于检测水果成熟度、运动、制造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。该项目采用多学科方法来研究灵长类动物和其他哺乳动物精确触觉的变化及其作用。这项工作的结果旨在确定与精确触觉变化相关的生态因素，并有助于我们理解触觉在灵长类动物和人类感官生物学、生态学和进化中的作用。这个项目可以通过在亚利桑那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，该项目支持和扩大国际研究合作，并为本科生和研究生提供STEM研究培训。至关重要的是，该研究团队利用独特的采样机会，从野生哺乳动物物种（其中许多物种濒临灭绝且研究不足）中生成组织和RNA生物库，并将数据提供给全球研究界。这个多学科项目有四个目标：(1)确定精确触摸的基因型-表型关系；(2)量化饮食、手灵巧度和工具使用对精确触摸的影响；(3)量化树栖与陆地栖对精确触觉的影响，(4)评估灵长类动物是精确触觉唯一衍生的说法。该项目旨在解决长期存在的进化问题，如驱动早期灵长类动物特征起源的选择因素，以及人类谱系中高度敏感的精确触觉的进化问题。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个体和物种之间不同组织中触摸受体细胞（即机械受体）密度和形态的估计。该项目重点研究了灵长类物种的分类分支（链鼻类、颈鼻类、颈鼻类、人猿）和生态学（饮食、活动模式、基质使用、工具使用），并将其与非灵长类哺乳动物模型进行比较，以研究灵长类动物特征的趋同进化。研究小组与兽医合作，从18种哺乳动物身上收集组织样本。研究小组还收集了研究物种如何使用精确触觉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来研究自然选择对哺乳动物触觉基因的影响。本项目由生物人类学（SBE）和生理机制与生物力学（BIO）联合资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.