http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2008/07/26/bats-compasses-tongues-and-memories/ Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:00:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2008/07/26/bats-compasses-tongues-and-memories/#comment-879 David Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:49:50 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2008/07/26/bats-compasses-tongues-and-memories/#comment-879 On a related note, we recently published some interesting findings on bats. To summarize, mammals typically have shown no signs of recent activity for Class II repetitive elements (DNA transposons, hATs, helitrons, etc). In fact, based on data from humans, other primates, platypus, opossum, elephant, mouse, rat, etc. it has basically been assumed that no mammals have had an active Class II element in their genome for the past 40 million years. We just published a paper in Genome Research that turns this assumption on its head. The lineage of bats leading to Myotis lucifugus (the little brown bat and the first bat to have had its genome sequenced) show a completely unique pattern for mammals. They have TONS of Class II elements and some of them are likely still active in the genome today. While there is much to be done to prove the connection, we believe that this activity may have something to do with the huge species richness of this particular family of bats (Vespertilionidae). If you are interested, you can read the paper at <a href="http://www.as.wvu.edu/~dray/pubs.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.as.wvu.edu/~dray/pubs.html</a> (paper #33). Hope you enjoy. On a related note, we recently published some interesting findings on bats. To summarize, mammals typically have shown no signs of recent activity for Class II repetitive elements (DNA transposons, hATs, helitrons, etc). In fact, based on data from humans, other primates, platypus, opossum, elephant, mouse, rat, etc. it has basically been assumed that no mammals have had an active Class II element in their genome for the past 40 million years.
We just published a paper in Genome Research that turns this assumption on its head. The lineage of bats leading to Myotis lucifugus (the little brown bat and the first bat to have had its genome sequenced) show a completely unique pattern for mammals. They have TONS of Class II elements and some of them are likely still active in the genome today. While there is much to be done to prove the connection, we believe that this activity may have something to do with the huge species richness of this particular family of bats (Vespertilionidae). If you are interested, you can read the paper at http://www.as.wvu.edu/~dray/pubs.html (paper #33). Hope you enjoy.

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