Meet Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua

The first monkey clones produced by method that made Dolly
Sunday, 28 January 2018

The first primate clones made by somatic cell nuclear transfer are two genetically identical long-tailed macaques born recently at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai. Researchers named the newborns Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua - born eight and six weeks ago, respectively - after the Chinese adjective "Zhonghua," which means Chinese nation or people. The technical milestone, presented January 24 in the journal Cell, makes it a realistic possibility for labs to conduct research with customizable populations of genetically uniform monkeys.

"There are a lot of questions about primate biology that can be studied by having this additional model," says senior author Qiang Sun, Director of the Nonhuman Primate Research Facility at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience.

"You can produce cloned monkeys with the same genetic background except the gene you manipulated. This will generate real models not just for genetically based brain diseases, but also cancer, immune, or metabolic disorders and allow us to test the efficacy of the drugs for these conditions before clinical use."

 CAPTION: This is a photograph of Zhong Zhong, one of the first two monkeys created by somatic cell nuclear transfer. CREDIT: Qiang Sun and Mu-ming Poo/Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are not the first primate clones - the title goes to Tetra, a rhesus monkey born in 1999 through a simpler method called embryo splitting (Chan et al., Science 287, 317-319). This approach is how twins arise naturally but can only generate up to four offspring at a time. Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the technique used to create Dolly the sheep over 20 years ago, in which researchers remove the nucleus from an egg cell and replace it with another nucleus from differentiated body cells. This reconstructed egg then develops into a clone of whatever donated the replacement nucleus.

 CAPTION: This is a photograph of Hua Hua, one of the first monkey clones made by somatic cell nuclear transfer. CREDIT: Qiang Sun and Mu-ming Poo/Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Differentiated monkey cell nuclei, compared to other mammals such as mice or cows, have proven resistant to SCNT. Sun and his colleagues overcame this challenge primarily by introducing epigenetic modulators after the nuclear transfer that switch on or off the genes that are inhibiting embryo development. The researchers found their success rate increased by transferring nuclei taken from fetal differentiated cells, such as fibroblasts, a cell type in the connective tissue. Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are clones of the same macaque fetal fibroblasts. Adult donor cells were also used, but those clones only lived for a few hours after birth.

"We tried several different methods, but only one worked," says Sun.

"There was much failure before we found a way to successfully clone a monkey."

The first author Zhen Liu, a postdoctoral fellow, spent three years practicing and optimizing the SCNT procedure. He tested various methods to quickly and precisely remove the nuclear materials from the egg cell and promote the fusion of the nucleus-donor cell and enucleated egg. With the additional help of epigenetic modulators that re-activate the suppressed genes in the differentiated nucleus, he was able to achieve much higher rates of normal embryo development and pregnancy in the surrogate female monkeys.

"The SCNT procedure is rather delicate, so the faster you do it, the less damage to the egg you have, and Dr. Liu has a green thumb for doing this," says Muming Poo, a co-author on the study who directs the Institute of Neuroscience of CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology and helps to supervise the project.

"It takes a lot of practice. Not everybody can do the enucleation and cell fusion process quickly and precisely, and it is likely that the optimization of transfer procedure greatly helped us to achieve this success."

The researchers plan to continue improving the technique, which will also benefit from future work in other labs, and monitoring Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua for their physical and intellectual development. The babies are currently bottle fed and are growing normally compared to monkeys their age. The group is also expecting more macaque clones to be born over the coming months.

The lab is following strict international guidelines for animal research set by the US National Institutes of Health, but Sun and Poo encourage the scientific community to discuss what should or should not be acceptable practices when it comes to cloning of non-human primates.

"We are very aware that future research using non-human primates anywhere in the world depends on scientists following very strict ethical standards," Poo says.

This work was supported by grants from Chinese Academy of Sciences, the CAS Key Technology Talent Program, the Shanghai Municipal Government Bureau of Science and Technology, the National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

Source: CELL PRESS

Contact: Joseph Caputo jcaputo@cell.com

Reference:

Cloning of macaque monkeys by somatic cell nuclear transfer

Zhen Liu, Yijun Cai, Yan Wang, Yanhong Nie, Chenchen Zhang, Yuting Xu, Xiaotong Zhang, Yong Lu, Zhanyang Wang, Muming Poo, Qiang Sun

Cell, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.01.020

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Chimeric Macaques Produced for the First Time

OHSU research produces the world's first primate chimeric offspring 
Thursday, 05 January 2012

Newly published research by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University provides significant new information about how early embryonic stem cells develop and take part in formation of the primate species. The research, which took place at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, has also resulted in the first successful birth of chimeric monkeys — monkeys developed from stem cells taken from two separate embryos. The research will be published this week in the online edition of the journal Cell and will be published in a future printed copy of the journal.

Chimeric macaques. Credit:

Oregon Health & Science
University.

The research was conducted to gain a better understanding of the differences between natural stem cells residing in early embryos and their cultured counterparts called embryonic stem cells. This study also determined that stem cell functions and abilities are different between primates and rodents.

Here's more information about the early primate stem cells that were studied: The first cell type was totipotent cells — cells from the early embryo that have the ability to divide and produce all of the differentiated cells in the placenta and the body of organism. These were compared with pluripotent cells — cells derived from the later stage embryo that have only the ability to become the body but not placenta.

In mice, either totipotent or pluripotent cells from two different animals can be combined to transform into an embryo that later becomes a chimeric animal. However, the current research demonstrated that for reasons yet unknown, chimeric animals can only develop from totipotent cells in a higher animal model: the rhesus macaque. OHSU showed this to be the case by successfully producing the world's first primate chimeric offspring, three baby rhesus macaques named Roku, Hex and Chimero.

"This is an important development — not because anyone would develop human chimeras — but because it points out a key distinction between species and between different kind of stem cells that will impact our understanding of stem cells and their future potential in regenerative medicine," explained Shoukhrat Mitalipov, Ph.D., an associate scientist in the Division of Reproductive and Developmental Sciences at ONPRC.

"Stem cell therapies hold great promise for replacing damaged nerve cells in those who have been paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury or for example, in replacing dopamine-producing cells in Parkinson's patients who lose these brain cells resulting in disease. As we move stem cell therapies from the lab to clinics and from the mouse to humans, we need to understand what these cells do and what they can't do and also how cell function can differ in species."

Source: Oregon Health & Science University

Contact: Jim Newman
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Teeth Stem Cells Can Stimulate Growth of Brain Cells in Monkeys

Teeth Stem Cells Can Stimulate Growth of Brain Cells in Monkeys Wednesday, 12 November 2008 Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have discovered dental pulp stem cells can stimulate growth and generation of several types of neural cells. Findings from this study, available in the October issue of the journal Stem Cells, suggest dental pulp stem cells show promise for use in cell therapy and regenerative medicine, particularly therapies associated with the central nervous system. Dental stem cells are adult stem cells, one of the two major divisions of stem cell research. Adult stem cells have the ability to regenerate many different types of cells, promising great therapeutic potential, especially for diseases such as Huntington's and Parkinson's. Already, dental pulp stem cells have been used for regeneration of dental and craniofacial cells. Yerkes researcher Anthony Chan, DVM, PhD, and his team of researchers placed dental pulp stem cells from the tooth of a rhesus macaque into the hippocampal areas of mice. The dental pulp stem cells stimulated growth of new neural cells, and many of these formed neurons. "By showing dental pulp stem cells are capable of stimulating growth of neurons, our study demonstrates the specific therapeutic potential of dental pulp stem cells and the broader potential for adult stem cells," says Chan, who also is assistant professor of human genetics in Emory School of Medicine. Because dental pulp stem cells can be isolated from anyone at any age during a visit to the dentist, Chan is interested in the possibility of dental pulp stem cell banking. "Being able to use your own stem cells for therapy would greatly decrease the risk of cell rejection that we now experience in transplant medicine," says Chan. Chan and his research team next plan to determine if dental pulp stem cells from monkeys with Huntington's disease can enhance brain cell development in the same way dental pulp stem cells from healthy monkeys do. Reference: Putative Dental Pulp-Derived Stem/Stromal Cells Promote Proliferation and Differentiation of Endogenous Neural Cells in the Hippocampus of Mice Anderson Hsien-Cheng Huang, Brooke R. Snyder, Pei-Hsun Cheng, Anthony W.S. Chan Stem Cells Vol. 26 No. 10 October 2008, pp. 2654 -2663, doi:10.1634/stemcells.2008-0285 ......... ZenMaster

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China Produce Its First IVF Monkeys

Plan to engineer gene-modified monkeys later Thursday, 11 September 2008 Chinese scientists have created the country's first test-tube monkeys, which are said to be the first step to engineer gene-modified monkeys. "Our next step is to bring about more test-tube monkeys and eventually make gene-modified monkeys benefiting for medical research," said Dr. Sun Qiang, at the Shanghai Institute of Brain Functional Genomics (IBFG), East China Normal University in Shanghai. Sun's team capitalized on a few new technologies on stimulating more eggs from female monkeys and collecting semen and mammalian oocytes, as well as new ways of in vitro fertilization and embryo transplantation. The new technologies "can significantly improve the pregnancy rate and live birth of healthy baby monkeys," the scientist said. All seven new born monkeys are healthy, Sun said, with the oldest Lele, or Happiness, being aged at one and half years. Reference: Efficient reproduction of cynomolgus monkey using pronuclear embryo transfer technique Qiang Sun, Juan Dong, Wenting Yang, Yujuan Jin, Mingying Yang, Yan Wang, Philip L. Wang, Yinghe Hu and Joe Z. Tsien PNAS September 2, 2008 vol. 105 no. 35 12956-12960 ......... ZenMaster

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Extinction Threat Growing for Mankind’s Closest Relatives

Monkeys and other primates dying off due to habitat loss, hunting Tuesday, 05 August 2008 Mankind's closest relatives – the world's monkeys, apes and other primates – are disappearing from the face of the Earth, with some literally being eaten into extinction. The first comprehensive review in five years of the world's 634 kinds of primates found that almost 50 percent are in danger of going extinct, according to the criteria of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Issued at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, the report by the world's foremost primate authorities presented a chilling indictment on the state of primates everywhere. In Asia, more than 70 percent of primates are classified on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered – meaning they could disappear forever in the near future. The main threats are habitat destruction, particularly from the burning and clearing of tropical forests that also emits at least 20 percent of the global greenhouse gases causing climate change, and the hunting of primates for food and an illegal wildlife trade. "We've raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined," said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and the long-time chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Primate Specialist Group. "Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction." The review funded by CI, the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, Disney's Animal Kingdom and the IUCN is part of an unprecedented examination of the state of the world's mammals to be released at the 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October. With the input of hundreds of experts worldwide, the primate review provides scientific data to show the severe threats facing animals that share virtually all DNA with humans. In both Vietnam and Cambodia, approximately 90 percent of primate species are considered at risk of extinction. Populations of gibbons, leaf monkeys, langur and other species have dwindled due to rampant habitat loss exacerbated by hunting for food and to supply the wildlife trade in traditional Chinese medicine and pets. "What is happening in Southeast Asia is terrifying," said Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head of the IUCN Species Program. "To have a group of animals under such a high level of threat is, quite frankly, unlike anything we have recorded among any other group of species to date." Elsewhere, species from tiny mouse lemurs to massive mountain gorillas face challenges to survive. In Africa, 11 of the 13 kinds of red colobus monkeys assessed were listed as Critically Endangered or Endangered. Two may already be extinct: Bouvier's red colobus (Procolobus pennantii bouvieri) has not been seen in 25 years, and no living Miss Waldron's red colobus (Procolobus badius waldroni) has been seen by a primatologist since 1978, despite occasional reports that some still survives. "Among the African species, the great apes such as gorillas and bonobos have always tended to grab the limelight, and even though they are deeply threatened, it is smaller primates such as the red colobus that could die out first," said IPS President Richard Wrangham. As our closest relatives, nonhuman primates are important to the health of their surrounding ecosystems. Through the dispersal of seeds and other interactions with their environments, primates help support a wide range of plant and animal life in the world's tropical forests. Healthy forests provide vital resources for local human populations, and also absorb and store carbon dioxide that causes climate change. Meanwhile, scientists continue to learn more about primates and their role in the world. Since 2000, 53 species of primates previously unknown to science have been described – 40 from Madagascar, two from Africa, three from Asia and eight from Central and South America. In 2007, researchers found a long-rumoured population of Critically Endangered greater bamboo lemurs (Prolemur simus) in a wetland 400 kilometres (240 miles) from the only other known home of the species. In total, the species numbers about 140 individuals in the wild. The IUCN Red List sets a series of criteria for a species to be categorized as threatened. In cases lacking the necessary information, the species can be listed as Data Deficient, which applied to nearly 15 percent of the primates in the new review. Many of those species, particularly newly discovered ones, are expected to eventually be classified as threatened. Despite the gloomy assessment, conservationists point to a notable success in helping targeted species recover. In Brazil, the black lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysopygus) was down-listed to Endangered from Critically Endangered, as was the golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) in 2003, as a result of three decades of conservation efforts involving numerous institutions. Populations of both animals are now well-protected but remain very small, causing an urgent need for reforestation to provide new habitat for their long-term survival. "If you have forests, you can save primates," said CI scientist Anthony Rylands, the deputy chair of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group. "The work with lion tamarins shows that conserving forest fragments and reforesting to create corridors that connect them is not only vital for primates, but offers the multiple benefits of maintaining healthy ecosystems and water supplies while reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change." Researchers also considered reclassifying the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) to Endangered from Critically Endangered due to increasing populations in their only habitat – the protected mountain jungles of Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. However, the slayings of eight mountain gorillas in 2007 and continuing political turmoil in the region delayed the planned reclassification. See also: Spain Give Great Apes Human Rights CellNEWS - Thursday, 26 June 2008 Should Great Apes Have Human Rights? CellNEWS - Thursday, 26 June 2008 ......... ZenMaster

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Stem cells extracted from cloned macaque embryos

Stem cells extracted from cloned macaque embryos Thursday, 15 November 2007 Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer J Byrne, D Pedersen, L Clepper, M Nelson, W Sanger, S Gokhale, D Wolf & S Mitalipov Nature advance online publication 14 November 2007 doi:10.1038/nature06357; Published online 14 This work was previously reported early this summer: Monkey cloning Wednesday, 20 June 2007 ......... ZenMaster

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Xenotransplanting embryonic pig pancreatic cells

Cross-species transplant in rhesus macaques is step toward diabetes cure for humans Friday, 19 October 2007 With an eye on curing diabetes, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have successfully transplanted embryonic pig pancreatic cells destined to produce insulin into diabetic macaque monkeys – all without the need for risky immune suppression drugs that prevent rejection. The transplanted cells, known as primordia, are in the earliest stages of developing into pancreatic tissues. Within several weeks of the transplants, the cells became engrafted, or established, within the three rhesus macaque monkeys that received them. The cells also released pig insulin in response to rising blood glucose levels, as would be expected in healthy animals and humans. "The approach reduced the animals' need for insulin injections and has promise for curing diabetes in humans," says senior investigator Marc Hammerman, M.D., the Chromalloy Professor of Renal Diseases in Medicine. "The transplants worked without a need for immune suppression and that is a major obstacle we have overcome." Although the transplants fell short of producing sufficient insulin to cure the macaques' diabetes, Hammerman predicts that with additional research, including the transplantation of additional embryonic pig cells into the animals, he will be able to reduce their need for insulin injections entirely. The new research follows on the heels of reports by Hammerman and his colleagues demonstrating that transplanted pig pancreatic primordia can cure both type 1 and type 2 diabetes in rats, without using immune suppression drugs. Other scientists have tried different types of pancreatic cell transplants – in animals and humans – as a stepping stone to curing diabetes, but they all require anti-rejection drugs. These drugs must be taken daily to stave off rejection and have adverse effects of their own that limit the success of the transplants. As a treatment for diabetes in people, pig insulin typically works as well as the human form. Before recombinant DNA technology enabled pharmaceutical companies to manufacture human insulin in the 1980s, pig and cow insulin were routinely given to diabetic patients. The primates in the current study had type 1 diabetes, the form that occurs when islet cells in the pancreas stop producing insulin all together. The Washington University researchers transplanted 19 embryonic pig pancreatic primordia into each diabetic monkey. Each primordia is smaller than the diameter of a period that ends a sentence and is transplanted into a membrane that envelops the intestines and other digestive organs. The transplanted cells were retrieved from the pig embryos early in their development, which is believed to render them "invisible" to the primates' immune system or induce a state of tolerance, either of which eliminates the need for immune suppression. The researchers determined by multiple methods that the transplanted cells became established within the primates. And as the cells matured, they began to release pig insulin. "We found using every method that the cells engraft long-term and, thus, are not rejected by the animals' immune systems," Hammerman says. "It's been more than two years since our first transplant was carried out. That particular primate doesn't produce any primate insulin, but has pig insulin circulating in its bloodstream that has reduced by more than 50 percent the amount of injected insulin the animal needs, compared to levels before the transplant. The animals have never received immune suppression drugs." Two of the macaques remain healthy. One, however, became anaemic about six weeks post-transplant and was euthanized a month later after developing acute respiratory distress. The researchers could not find a link between this animal's illness and the pancreatic cell transplants. The two remaining macaques have each received two transplants of embryonic pancreatic cells. One of the animals has been followed for 23 months after his first transplant, and the amount of insulin he needs to have injected has declined by some 55 percent over baseline levels. The other macaque has been followed for 10 months after his initial transplant, and his need for injected insulin continues to decline over time. Hammerman and his colleague Sharon Rogers, research instructor in medicine, are leaders in the emerging field of organogenesis, which focuses on growing organs from transplanted embryonic organ precursors known as primordia. Unlike embryonic stem cells, which can become virtually any cell type, primordia are locked into becoming cells of a particular organ. "We are encouraged by these results," Rogers says. "The absence of a need for immune suppression in diabetic rats gave us hope that we were on the right track. But many findings in rats do not hold true for species that are more closely related to humans, such as non-human primates. This one did." The team will now determine how best to eliminate the need for injected insulin in the diabetic macaques that receive transplants, thus demonstrating long-term effectiveness of the technique, and establish the absolute safety of pancreatic primordia transplants. If these experiments succeed, the researchers plan to conduct clinical trials in humans with diabetes. "We hope to find out how to apply our findings to human type 1 and type 2 diabetics because the embryonic pig primordia would represent an unlimited source of tissue for transplantation," Hammerman says. ......... ZenMaster

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Endogenous retrovirus in humans and monkeys

Spread of endogenous retrovirus K is similar in the DNA of humans and rhesus monkeys Wednesday, 10 October 2007 According to palaeontology and molecular studies, the chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes) is the closer relative to the humans (Homo Sapiens) and that both lineages had a common ancestor at 5 to 7 million years ago. Moreover, the human-chimp lineage split from that of the rhesus monkey (Macaca Mulatta) around 25 million years ago. However, by studying the population dynamics of complete copies of primate endogenous retrovirus family K (ERV-K) in the genomes of humans, chimpanzee and rhesus monkey, a surprising pattern was observed. The study by Romano and colleagues being published this week on PLoS ONE revealed that human ERV-K had a similar demographic signature to that of the rhesus monkey, both differing greatly from that of the chimpanzee. The data suggested that the humans and rhesus have been purging ERV-K copies from their genomes while the chimpanzee ERV-K population kept the signature of increasing numbers of ERV-K amplification in the genome of ancestral primates during the last 20 million years. Hominids have been moving out of Africa for the last 2 million years and the modern humans (Homo Sapiens) spread around almost the entire globe during the last 100 thousand years. Moreover, Macaca is the most specious primate genus and it is believed to have originated around 2.5 million years ago and became widely dispersed within a short period of time, from the West in Afghanistan to the Eastern coast of China. It is also known that speciation events partition and restrict flow among genetic pools. As a consequence, both Homo and Macaca by colonizing new environments and undergoing successive population fluctuations that caused severe genetic bottlenecks, possible purged ERV-K from their genomes in a similar fashion. On the other hand, populations chimpanzee have been restricted to Eastern and Central Sub-Saharan Africa, ever since and crucially, are also known to have a greater genetic diversity than humans (due to a greater effective population number Ne), even when humans have a far greater census population. While the population size fluctuations due to dispersal or speciation may have had impact on genome architecture, the several expansion and bottlenecks experienced by Homo and Macaca may have played an important role in shaping ERV-K dynamics. Because Pan did not suffer severe bottlenecks since their separation from the Pan – Homo (human) common ancestor, they not only show a greater genetic diversity but also they preserved a greater number of complete ERV-K copies in their genomes. The most remarkable result was that for the first time it could be observed that genetic fluctuations caused by bottlenecks and expansion in host species play a fundamental role not only in their genetic diversity but also in the interaction with latent parasites that leave their genome copies in our DNA. Citation: Demographic Histories of ERV-K in Humans, Chimpanzees and Rhesus Monkeys Romano CM, de Melo FL, Corsini MAB, Holmes EC, Zanotto PM PLoS ONE 2007, 2(10): e1026. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001026 ......... ZenMaster

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Gene regulation, not just genes, is what sets humans apart from monkeys

Gene regulation, not just genes, is what sets humans apart from our cousins Monday, 13 August 2007

The striking differences between humans and chimps aren’t so much in the genes we have, which are 99 percent the same, but in the way those genes are used, according to new research from a Duke University team.

It’s rather like the same set of notes being played in very different ways.

In two major traits that set humans apart from chimps and other primates – those involving brains and diet – gene regulation, the complex cross-talk that governs when genes are turned on and off, appears to be significantly different.

“Positive selection, the process by which genetic changes that aid survival and reproduction spread throughout a species, has targeted the regulation of many genes known to be involved in the brain and nervous system and in nutrition,” said Ralph Haygood, a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Duke biology professor Gregory Wray.

Haygood is lead author in a report on the research to be published online on Sunday, Aug. 12, in the research journal Nature Genetics.

His group looked at the regulatory sequences immediately adjacent to 6,280 genes on the DNA of chimps, humans and the rhesus macaque, a more distant primate relative that has 88 percent the same genes as humans. These regulatory stretches of DNA are where proteins bind to the genome to initiate a gene’s function. And it is here that evolution has apparently fine-tuned the performance of genes, Wray said, resulting in the dramatic differences in the human brain.

Though many studies have looked for significant differences in the coding regions of genes relating to neural system development and failed to find any, the Duke team believes this is the first study to take a genome-wide look at the evolution of regulatory sequences in different organisms.

Other studies have found significant differences between these species in the coding regions that govern the immune system, the sense of smell and the manufacture of sperm, but the coding regions of neural-related genes had shown very little sign of positive selection in these studies. Yet, as far back as 1975 when Mary-Claire King and Allan Wilson first said humans and chimps were 99 percent the same genetically, they had offered the suggestion that greater differences might be found in the regulatory regions.

The type of analysis performed by the Duke team couldn’t be done until the macaque genome was published in 2005 because they needed a third, closely related relative to compare the regulatory sequences.

The mouse genome had been used as a reference point for comparing the coding sequences of humans and chimps, but the non-coding sequences have generally evolved much faster.

“Mice wouldn’t work for analyzing the non-coding sequences, because they’re too different from humans and chimps,” Haygood said.

While the biochemistry that cells use to turn food into energy is essentially the same across most animal species, the fine-tuning of how an organism deals with the different sorts of sugars and complex carbohydrates in its diet lies in the regulatory sequences, Wray said.

Chimps are fruit-eaters, for the most part, and would not last long away from their fruit-rich forest. The sugars in their diet are relatively simple to break down and convert to cellular fuel. Humans, on the other hand, eat a wider array of foods, including many the chimps would simply not be able to digest like starchy root crops. The researchers found dramatic differences in the regulatory regions of their genes for breaking down more complex carbohydrates. It may be that parts of the human metabolism are cranked up to digest carbohydrates down to simpler sugars.

“Regulatory changes have adapted to changing circumstances without changing the essential chemistry of metabolism,” Wray said.

“This may set the stage for a more focused analysis of the human diet.”

Much is being written and hypothesized about how dietary changes have contributed to the current human pandemics of obesity and diabetes, and perhaps there will be some insights from understanding how these regulatory sequences have evolved, he said.

To do a genome-wide analysis of regulatory regions, Haygood and post-doctoral fellow Olivier Fedrigo had to adapt some of the statistical tools used for genome-wide analysis of coding regions. To be sure their results would be robust, they focused on just the most reliably accurate published DNA sequences in common between the three animals, discarding two-thirds of the genome to ensure accuracy.

“With only three species, we had to be very stringent about quality,” Fedrigo said.

The researchers don’t think these findings will be of any help resolving questions about how and when the ancestors of humans and chimps diverged on the tree of life, but it’s safe to say that “most of this is ancient history,” Wray said. ......... ZenMaster

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Monkey cloning

Monkey cloning Wednesday, 20 June 2007 In a world first Shoukhart Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Centre in Beaverton, USA, have provided evidence that he successfully achieved somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in a primate. Mitalipov talked of his latest potentially groundbreaking discovery: an efficient and reliable method for cloning primate embryos from adult cells, at an unscheduled talk at the end of Monday’s session of the 5th International Society for Stem Cell Research Meeting held in Cairns, Australia, this week. He managed to clone rhesus monkey embryos from adult cells and generate embryonic stem cells from them. Previously it has proved impossible to derive embryonic cells from cloned embryos in primates. Mitalipov made two batches of embryonic stem cells from 20 cloned embryos. Human cloning closer than ever before Cosmos Online - Tuesday, 19 June 2007 ......... ZenMaster

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Rhesus Monkey Genome Sequenced

Rhesus Monkey Genome Sequenced. The macaque genome is the third primate genome to be completed after human and chimpanzee. In conjuction with the publication of the genome sequence of the rhesus macaque in the 13 April edition of Science, we have created a special online collection. It includes an interactive poster with images, video and text, and a corresponding lesson plan for use in high school classrooms, which delves into evolutionary biology and what can be learned from the genome of the macaque -- one of biology’s most important model organisms. Access to the online extras, as well as to the genome papers themselves, is free to all visitors to www.sciencemag.org. Please share this information with anyone who might find it useful. Go to the special online collection for the macaque genome. ..................... ZenMaster