ArticleGenome biology and evolution2017
Transition to an Aquatic Habitat Permitted the Repeated Loss of the Pleiotropic KLK8 Gene in Mammals.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Convergent Evolution Has Led to the Loss of Claw Proteins in Snakes and Worm Lizards.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Sirenian genomes illuminate the evolution of fully aquatic species within the mammalian superorder afrotheria.Nature communications · 2024Article
- The Evolution of Transglutaminases Underlies the Origin and Loss of Cornified Skin Appendages in Vertebrates.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Pseudogenization of the Hair-Related Genes PADI3 and S100A3 in Cetaceans and Hippopotamus amphibius.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Article
- Cetacean epidermal specialization: A review.Anatomia, histologia, embryologia · 2022Review
- Gene losses in the common vampire bat illuminate molecular adaptations to blood feeding.Science advances · 2022Article
- Parallel Independent Losses of G-Type Lysozyme Genes in Hairless Aquatic Mammals.Genome biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Genomic and anatomical comparisons of skin support independent adaptation to life in water by cetaceans and hippos.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
- PseudoChecker: an integrated online platform for gene inactivation inference.Nucleic acids research · 2020Article
- Neuropsin in mental health.The journal of physiological sciences : JPS · 2020Review
- Losses of human disease-associated genes in placental mammals.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2020Article
- A genome alignment of 120 mammals highlights ultraconserved element variability and placenta-associated enhancers.GigaScience · 2020Article
- Convergent degeneration of olfactory receptor gene repertoires in marine mammals.BMC genomics · 2019Article
- Evolutionary Analysis of Bile Acid-Conjugating Enzymes Reveals a Complex Duplication and Reciprocal Loss History.Genome biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Signatures of Relaxed Selection in the CYP8B1 Gene of Birds and Mammals.Journal of molecular evolution · 2019Article
- Genes lost during the transition from land to water in cetaceans highlight genomic changes associated with aquatic adaptations.Science advances · 2019Article
- Convergent gene losses illuminate metabolic and physiological changes in herbivores and carnivores.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Differential Evolution of the Epidermal Keratin Cytoskeleton in Terrestrial and Aquatic Mammals.Molecular biology and evolution · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Kallikrein related peptidase 8 (KLK8; also called neuropsin) is a serine protease that plays distinct roles in the skin and hippocampus. In the skin, KLK8 influences keratinocyte proliferation and desquamation, and activates antimicrobial peptides in sweat. In the hippocampus, KLK8 affects memory acquisition. Here, we examined the evolution of KLK8 in mammals and discovered that, out of 70 placental mammals, KLK8 is exclusively lost in three independent fully-aquatic lineages, comprising dolphin, killer whale, minke whale, and manatee. In addition, while the sperm whale has an intact KLK8 reading frame, the gene evolves neutrally in this species. We suggest that the distinct functions of KLK8 likely became obsolete in the aquatic environment, leading to the subsequent loss of KLK8 in several fully-aquatic mammalian lineages. First, the cetacean and manatee skin lacks sweat glands as an adaptation to the aquatic environment, which likely made the epidermal function of KLK8 obsolete. Second, cetaceans and manatees exhibit a proportionally small hippocampus, which may have rendered the hippocampal functions of KLK8 obsolete. Together, our results shed light on the genomic changes that correlate with skin and neuroanatomical differences of aquatic mammals, and show that even pleiotropic genes can be lost during evolution if an environmental change nullifies the need for the different functions of such genes.
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