Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-30-2022

Publication Title

Frontiers in zoology [electronic resource]

Keywords

JMG

JAX Source

Front Zool. 2022;19(1):30.

Volume

19

Issue

1

First Page

30

Last Page

30

ISSN

1742-9994

PMID

36451195

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-022-00475-8

Grant

CW and RK are supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (ES29916, AG038070, DK131019, and DK131061) and the Alport Syndrome Foundation.

Abstract

Unique genetic adaptations are present in bears of every species across the world. From (nearly) shutting down important organs during hibernation to preventing harm from lifestyles that could easily cause metabolic diseases in humans, bears may hold the answer to various human ailments. However, only a few of these unique traits are currently being investigated at the molecular level, partly because of the lack of necessary tools. One of these tools is well-annotated genome assemblies from the different, extant bear species. These reference genomes are needed to allow us to identify differences in genetic variants, isoforms, gene expression, and genomic features such as transposons and identify those that are associated with biomedical-relevant traits. In this review we assess the current state of the genome assemblies of the eight different bear species, discuss current gaps, and the future benefits these reference genomes may have in informing human biomedical applications, while at the same time improving bear conservation efforts.

Comments

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

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