ArticleScientific reports2015
'Obesity' is healthy for cetaceans? Evidence from pervasive positive selection in genes related to triacylglycerol metabolism.
Article in Scientific reports, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advancing Marine Mammal Conservation Through Omics Tools and Integration of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge.Molecular ecology · 2026Review
- Cetacean loss of the master adipose tissue regulator βNature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Assessment of Body Condition in a Threatened Dolphin Population in an Anthropized Area in Southeastern Brazil.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Genomic Divergence and the Evolution of Ecotypes in Bottlenose Dolphins (Genus Tursiops).Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Draft genome sequencing and assembly of Risso's dolphin,Journal of genomics · 2023Article
- Understanding across the senses: cross-modal studies of cognition in cetaceans.Animal cognition · 2022Review
- Cross-modal perception of identity by sound and taste in bottlenose dolphins.Science advances · 2022Article
- Transcriptomes Suggest That Pinniped and Cetacean Brains Have a High Capacity for Aerobic Metabolism While Reducing Energy-Intensive Processes Such as Synaptic Transmission.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2022Article
- Advances in thermal physiology of diving marine mammals: The dual role of peripheral perfusion.Temperature (Austin, Tex.) · 2022Review
- Genetic architecture and major genes for backfat thickness in pig lines of diverse genetic backgrounds.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2021Article
- Genomic bases underlying the adaptive radiation of core landbirds.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Multi-Omics Approaches and Radiation on Lipid Metabolism in Toothed Whales.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Comparative Mitogenomics inGenes · 2021Article
- Comparative genomics of cetartiodactyla: energy metabolism underpins the transition to an aquatic lifestyle.Conservation physiology · 2021Article
- Characterization of Insulin and Glucagon Genes and Their Producing Endocrine Cells From Pygmy Sperm Whale (Frontiers in endocrinology · 2020Article
- Insights into body size variation in cetaceans from the evolution of body-size-related genes.BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- Adaptive evolution of the ACSL gene family in Carnivora.Genetica · 2019Article
- Mitochondrial OXPHOS genes provides insights into genetics basis of hypoxia adaptation in anchialine cave shrimps.Genes & genomics · 2018Article
- Plasma metabolomic analysis in mature female common bottlenose dolphins: profiling the characteristics of metabolites after overnight fasting by comparison with data in beagle dogs.Scientific reports · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cetaceans are a group of secondarily adapted marine mammals with an enigmatic history of transition from terrestrial to fully aquatic habitat and subsequent adaptive radiation in waters around the world. Numerous physiological and morphological cetacean characteristics have been acquired in response to this drastic habitat transition; for example, the thickened blubber is one of the most striking changes that increases their buoyancy, supports locomotion, and provides thermal insulation. However, the genetic basis underlying the blubber thickening in cetaceans remains poorly explored. Here, 88 candidate genes associated with triacylglycerol metabolism were investigated in representative cetaceans and other mammals to test whether the thickened blubber matched adaptive evolution of triacylglycerol metabolism-related genes. Positive selection was detected in 41 of the 88 candidate genes, and functional characterization of these genes indicated that these are involved mainly in triacylglycerol synthesis and lipolysis processes. In addition, some essential regulatory genes underwent significant positive selection in cetacean-specific lineages, whereas no selection signal was detected in the counterpart terrestrial mammals. The extensive occurrence of positive selection in triacylglycerol metabolism-related genes is suggestive of their essential role in secondary adaptation to an aquatic life, and further implying that 'obesity' might be an indicator of good health for cetaceans.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.