Biological forms are similar to genetics but very different Chinese researchers have uncovered the mystery

Wuhan, July 16 (Xinhua) -- In nature, there are significant differentiations in the genetic aspects of some biological forms similar, and even reproductive isolation. How did such a peculiar phenomenon arise? Chinese researchers have unveiled the mystery.

Miao Wei's team of researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied the morphological phenomenon of tetramembranous insects. Tetramembrane is the earliest morphological species found in protozoan ciliates, which contain dozens of tetramembrane species that are difficult to distinguish in form but genetically very different.

Researcher Miao Wei's team used the unique large and small nuclear dual-core system of tetrahymbranous insects to track the genomic evolution of morphological species, and through comparative genomic analysis, found that tetramembranous insects used the small nuclear chromosomes near the milamentar and sub-telomere regions as the "innovation center" of the genome, and created a class of young, leucine-rich nuclei of new genes in parallel and independently.

Experiments have shown that the function of these thousands of large nuclear new genes with diverse structures is related to the fact that tetramembranes feed different bacteria, not their morphology. In this way, they adapt to different micro-ecological environments. This is a good explanation for why the ten tetramembranous species are highly morphologically similar but have high genetic diversity; their genomic differences can be as high as 38%, far exceeding the 1.2% genomic differences between humans and gorillas.

According to team experts, morphological species are widely present throughout eukaryotes, ranging from single-celled fungi, protozoa to multicellular animals and plants. This study not only reveals the evolution mechanism of tetrahymal morphological species, but also provides an important reference for the study of morphological species evolution of other eukaryote taxa. The relevant research results have been published in the international academic journal "Public Science Library Biology". At present, the team is further advancing the relevant research.

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