Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: People's Republic of China in Russian – People's Republic of China in Russian –
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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) — Chinese researchers have deciphered unique genetic adaptations that allowed Central Asian wild boars to survive environmental challenges during their millions-year migration across Eurasia, providing new insights into how large mammals respond to environmental changes, according to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).
An article with the results of the study conducted by scientists from the Institute of Agricultural Genomics in Shenzhen under CAAS /Guangdong Province, southern China/ was published in the journal Cell Genomics.
Wild boars, the ancestors of domestic pigs, first appeared in the tropics of Southeast Asia, and then over millions of years spread west and north, reaching the high-latitude regions of Europe and Central Asia.
These populations have faced extreme cold and reduced levels of ultraviolet radiation, but their mechanisms of genetic adaptation have long remained poorly understood, especially in populations in Central Asia, a key east-west migration corridor for these animals.
The study combined 47 newly sequenced and 49 publicly available high-quality whole-genome datasets of wild boars from East Asia, Central Asia and Europe. The results showed that Asian wild boars diverged from their Southeast Asian relatives approximately 3.6 million years ago, with subsequent differentiation forming distinct populations in southern China and Central Asia.
Central Asian boars have evolved genetic advantages for dry and cold environments, including two lipid metabolism gene variants that enhance energy storage when food is scarce, and one gene mutation linked to meat quality, potentially explaining their robust build.
The research team says these discoveries not only reconstruct the history of Eurasian wild boar migrations, but also create a natural gene bank for improving domestic pig breeding. -0-
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