ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2021
Elephant Genomes Reveal Accelerated Evolution in Mechanisms Underlying Disease Defenses.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Understanding Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in elephants through a One Health approach: a systematic review.BMC veterinary research · 2022Pooled it
- Evolutionary study of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in breast carcinoma.Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences · 2026Article
- Massive Genetic Diversity Loss Within Asian Elephant Subspecies: New Insights for Determining Conservation Priorities.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Dissecting cancer in a non-mammalian model: genomic insights from lemon frost geckos.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Neutrophil extracellular traps offer a new therapeutic target for elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus-hemorrhagic disease (EEHV-HD).Communications biology · 2026Article
- The genomic impact of population connectivity and decline in Africa's elephants.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The reference genome of the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus): a foundation for conservation and genomic research.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Conserved Pathways, Divergent Outcomes: A Cross-Species Genomic Perspective on the Cancer-Neurodegeneration Paradox.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Methylation-associated mutagenesis underlies variation in the mutation spectrum across eukaryotes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Recent Non-LTR Retrotransposon Activity Predicts Cancer Prevalence in Mammals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Advancing cancer research via comparative oncology.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2025Review
- Genomics Reveals Distinct Evolutionary Lineages in Asian Elephants.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Assessing CometChip technology for DNA damage studies in non-model species: distinct UV-induced responses in turtles and mammals.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Methylation-associated mutagenesis underlies variation in the mutation spectrum across eukaryotes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Paradoxical indeed.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The Elephant and the Spandrel.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Analysis of Cancer-Resisting Evolutionary Adaptations in Wild Animals and Applications for Human Oncology.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Review
- Comparative Genomics of the World's Smallest Mammals Reveals Links to Echolocation, Metabolism, and Body Size Plasticity.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Thermal stress, p53 structures and learning from elephants.Cell death discovery · 2024Review
- Evolution of ion channels in cetaceans: a natural experiment in the tree of life.Scientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Disease susceptibility and resistance are important factors for the conservation of endangered species, including elephants. We analyzed pathology data from 26 zoos and report that Asian elephants have increased neoplasia and malignancy prevalence compared with African bush elephants. This is consistent with observed higher susceptibility to tuberculosis and elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) in Asian elephants. To investigate genetic mechanisms underlying disease resistance, including differential responses between species, among other elephant traits, we sequenced multiple elephant genomes. We report a draft assembly for an Asian elephant, and defined 862 and 1,017 conserved potential regulatory elements in Asian and African bush elephants, respectively. In the genomes of both elephant species, conserved elements were significantly enriched with genes differentially expressed between the species. In Asian elephants, these putative regulatory regions were involved in immunity pathways including tumor-necrosis factor, which plays an important role in EEHV response. Genomic sequences of African bush, forest, and Asian elephant genomes revealed extensive sequence conservation at TP53 retrogene loci across three species, which may be related to TP53 functionality in elephant cancer resistance. Positive selection scans revealed outlier genes related to additional elephant traits. Our study suggests that gene regulation plays an important role in the differential inflammatory response of Asian and African elephants, leading to increased infectious disease and cancer susceptibility in Asian elephants. These genomic discoveries can inform future functional and translational studies aimed at identifying effective treatment approaches for ill elephants, which may improve conservation.
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