RT Journal
A1 Choo, Siew Woh
A1 Rayko, Mike
A1 Tan, Tze  King
A1 Hari, Ranjeev
A1 Komissarov, Aleksey
A1 Wee, Wei Yee
A1 Yurchenko, Andrey
A1 Kliver, Sergey
A1 Tamazian, Gaik
A1 Antunes, Agostinho
A1 Wilson, Richard K.
A1 Warren, Wesley C.
A1 Koepfli, Klaus-Peter
A1 Minx, Patrick
A1 Krasheninnikova, Ksenia
A1 Kotze, Antoinette
A1 Dalton, Desire L.
A1 Vermaak, Elaine
A1 Paterson, Ian C.
A1 Dobrynin, Pavel
A1 Thomas  Sitam, Frankie
A1 Rovie  Ryan  Japning, Jeffrine
A1 Johnson, Warren E.
A1 Mohamed  Yusoff, Aini
A1 Luo, Shu-Jin
A1 Vizi  Karuppannan, Kayal
A1 Fang, Gang
A1 Zheng, Deyou
A1 Gerstein, Mark B.
A1 Lipovich, Leonard
A1 O'Brien, Stephen J.
A1 Wong, Guat Jah
T1 Pangolin genomes and the evolution of mammalian scales and immunity
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2016 
FD August 10 
DO 10.1101/gr.203521.115 
SP gr.203521.115 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2016/08/10/gr.203521.115.abstract 
AB Pangolins, unique mammals with scales over most of their body, no teeth, poor vision, and an acute olfactory system, comprise the only placental order (Pholidota) without a whole-genome map. To investigate pangolin biology and evolution, we developed genome assemblies of the Malayan (Manis javanica) and Chinese (M. pentadactyla) pangolins. Strikingly, we found that interferon-epsilon (IFN-ε), exclusively expressed in epithelial cells and important in skin and mucosal immunity, is pseudogenised in all African and Asian pangolin species that we examined, perhaps impacting resistance to infection. We propose that scale development was an innovation that provided protection against injuries or stress and reduced pangolin vulnerability to infection. Further evidence of specialized adaptations was evident from positively-selected genes involving immunity-related pathways, inflammation, energy storage and metabolism, muscular and nervous systems, and scale/hair development. Olfactory receptor gene families are significantly expanded in pangolins, reflecting their well-developed olfaction system. This study provides insights into mammalian adaptation and functional diversification, new research tools and questions, and perhaps a new natural IFN-ε-deficient animal model for studying mammalian immunity.