Why Does This Species of Primate Drink Salt Water?

 The Cat Ba langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus), or the golden-headed langur, is one of the rarest species of primate globally at around ~85 animals. Despite its extremely small population, this species has many unique adaptations-- one of which is the novel ability to drink salt water. 

Their unique island environment calls for unique adaptations in order to survive. Certain genes have been found to likely increase tolerance to drinking salt water. Whole-genome scans to detect selective genes within the langurs identified 30 non-synonymous mutations in 22 genes relating to sodium transport and homeostasis. Of these 30 mutations, 21 were homozygous and occurred only in T. poliocephalus. Analyzing genes found in other vertebrates that adapt to salinity had shown that T. poliocephalus had non-synonymous variants of ten of these genes. 

While this preliminary study has only investigated four individuals and is not conclusive in the origins of this adaptation, researchers hope it can further emphasize the importance of protecting this critically endangered species.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241028131601.htm
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52811-7

Neurodegenerative disease found in monkeys

A disease in monkeys have been found that mimics a neurodegenerative disorder in people; specifically children. A population of Japanese monkeys were found to carry a mutation in the CLN7 gene and the disease is called Batten disease. It affects the nervous system by affecting lysosomes in cells. The function of lysosomes are to break down waste, but when the gene is mutated, lysosome produces a broken form of the protein which results in the buildup of "junk." This disease starts during childhood with symptoms such as vision loss, seizures, and eventually, the loss of cognitive functions. With the discovery of Batten disease in monkeys (which are closely related to humans), Oregon Health and Science University can perform gene therapy and discover ways to cure the disease or slow it down.

I personally think that this is the start to finding a cure for the Batten disease and any other diseases. When we discover that another animal has the same type of disease humans do, we can use this information to develop solutions.

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Is Cloning Humans Next?

Chinese scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai have made a cloning breakthrough that hasn't been seen since the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Researchers used the same cloning technique that was used to produce Dolly, to create two healthy monkeys. In the past cats, bovines, dogs, polo ponies, and pigs could be produced using cloning, but never before has anything in the primate family been cloned besides embryos. The monkeys created are two macaques, 7 to 8 weeks old, and are named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. To create Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua it took 127 eggs and using a monkey fetus; researchers noted they are a long ways away from making this cloning process efficient for primates.

The creation of Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua raise many ethical questions due to that their conception opens up the door for humans to be cloned. The significance of this breakthrough caught the attention of the Vatican's top bioethicists. The Vatican's bioethicists urged that the cloning of the monkeys must only be used for the betterment of humanity. Scientists, law professors and ethicists ranging from institutions such as Michigan State University, Stanford, and Berkeley weighed in the conception of Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. Many came to the same conclusions that cloning humans was unethical and even one going as far as to say it is "criminal." The chinese scientists who created these monkeys strongly emphasized that their overall goal is to use these monkeys to study diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua open up a door that could allow many breakthroughs in curing diseases and understanding how genetics work. I share a similar opinion with the experts on this one: humans should not be cloned. Many moral conundrums could arise from cloning, chiefly the concern is that people could be created for profit. 

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/whatiscloning/

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/01/25/science/ap-us-sci-cloned-monkeys.html

Talking Monkeys?

For years, researchers and scientists have been curious about primates and their ability to talk. We know that monkeys and chimpanzees are very smart, and have the ability to learn, but why don't they talk like us humans?

It is known that speech is one of the most powerful and a successful adaptation to humans. In order to understand why monkeys do not talk, researchers decided to do some experimenting. The first thing they looked at was the vocal tract of these animals, and realized that they are very similar to humans and have the ability to vocalize. But they believe that the monkey's brains are not wired properly to make speech and words. The adaptation of speech didn't only take place in our vocal tract, but also in our brains. As studies went on, the researchers discovered that monkeys can make a variety of different sounds, but also struggle with sounds, especially vowels.


http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/why-monkeys-can-t-talk-and-what-they-would-sound-if-they-could

Monkeys Built to Mimic Autism-Like Behaviors May Help Humans

Monkeys Built to Mimic Autism-Like Behaviors May Help Humans






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          Scientists have genetically engineered monkeys so they can exhibit behaviors similar to autism. Their goal is to test potential therapies on the animals in hopes that their resemblance to humans will yield more answers about the disorder. The scientists found that the monkeys showed “very similar behaviors related to human autism patients, including repetitive behaviors, increased anxiety and, most importantly, defects in social interactions,” said Zilong Qiu, a leader of the research at the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. The team is now imaging the brains of the monkeys  to identify the deficiency in the brain circuits that is responsible for the autism-like behavior.

         This appears to be the furthest along of several research efforts involving monkeys, usually marmosets or macaques, engineered with genes linked to autism. At the Institute of Neuroscience in China, other researchers are creating monkeys with genes linked to neuromotor and psychiatric disorders, said the director, Mu-Ming Poo. The overarching cause of autism is still unknown, and cases have been linked to about 100 mutations, some inherited and some developing spontaneously.

          This article was very interesting to me because I never payed attention to how monkeys act and how hey truly resemble autism. This research can benefit so many people in such a positive way and I hope more research is done and an answer is found.

Can Monkey’s Cure Autism?

              One out of one hundred and sixty children globally has been diagnosed with autism. In the United States alone, one out of sixty eight children lay within the autism spectrum. This complex brain disorder affects social and motor abilities found in the early stages of children development. Recently, Chinese researchers have developed “transgenic” monkeys that are linked to autistic behaviors. These monkeys introduce a different prospective for studying human autism and may be the model system that will help discover the cure. Mice have been the preferred model for studying any genetic disorders, but they have their limitations. On the contrary, monkeys provide better tools for human research because they are more closely related than mice.

                In humans, a gene known as MECP2 is associated with core symptoms of autism. Whenever this gene is over-expressed or over duplicated, autistic behaviors are the outcome. In order to see if this gene has an effect on animals other than humans, Chinese researchers injected MEPC2 into a monkey’s eggs, allowing them to be fertilized and later transferred to a surrogate monkey. When creating their first transgenic monkey, eight live monkeys were born. Each monkey carried the MEPC2 gene. Although these monkeys acted normal, they lacked normal social behaviors. They did not interact with grooming and frequently moved in repetitive, circular motions. The most interesting behavior they exhibited was increased anxiety when humans were near. The only attribute the monkeys did not display was having a seizure which is a key feature in autistic humans.

            Chinese scientists continue to explore and use brain imaging to target areas for autism-like behavior. If the target can be identified, a gene editing tool called CRISP/Cas9 will be used to control the gene. The only issue researcher’s face right now is the expenses of maintaining the monkeys, but without the monkeys, we may not find a cure.

           In my opinion, I believe that researchers have come one step closer to curing autism. I view myself as an optimist and like think that everything has a cure or solution. Monkeys are human’s closest relatives, so if they can genetically modify the gene that is causing these social behaviors, I believe the same solution could be used with humans. The only problem that concerns me is that the monkeys do not exhibit all features of autism compared to human symptoms, such as seizures. This might be proof that monkeys do not reproduce the human duplication disorder. Through all the hard work and research scientists put into their studies, a solution to autism will be on the way shortly.

Stem Cell Therapy Regenerates Heart Muscle Damaged from Heart Attacks In Primates

Heart cells created from human stem cells successfully restored damaged heart cells in monkeys. This was published in Nature magazine on April 30th, and the scientist came to the conclusion that if it can work in monkeys, it could probably work in humans too. The main question before the experiment begun was if it was possible to create enough heart cells to remuscularize damaged hearts in a large animal whose heart size and physiology is similar to that of the human heart. The scientist induced a heart attack on these monkeys and injected them with 1 billion heart cells derived from human stem cells and put the monkeys on immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection of the transplanted human cells. On average the transplanted stem cells regenerated 40 percent of the damaged heart tissue over subsequent weeks.
          This new research is very interesting because if this same experiment can be duplicated in human, the possibilities are endless with what else stem cells can help cure. This approach with stem cells could be ready for clinical trials in four years. The only problem with stem cell therapy is where to get the stem cells from. There are a lot of ethical and moral dilemmas because the best stem cells come from a human fetus.

Transgenic Monkeys: could be science's new Mouse!

The mouse has long been used in science to test a realm of different diseases and genetic mutations known to humans. More recently, scientists have began to move on to more complex organisms, such as this article features, like the Monkey. The creatures have both closer cognitive abilities to humans as well as social interactions that can be related more to humans. It is these components that researchers can take into consideration when observing the effects of the mutation or disease (that which had been grown in the monkey). Diseases such as Alzheimer's and autism are just two examples of a vast amount of possible mutations/diseases that can be found within the human genome that which scientists can insert into the monkeys. Although the use of monkeys in science is new, it could be the key to a world of answers. There are millions of people whose lives are effected everyday by things like autism, understanding how they happen is just the first step in being able to successfully treat them. Taking it one step further, the monkeys would also allow the scientists to test different treatment possibilities on the monkeys. This would be more beneficial to humans than testing the same treatments on the mouse.

Source: http://www.nature.com/news/precision-gene-editing-paves-way-for-transgenic-monkeys-1.14098

Further information on using monkeys to do research on can be found at: http://whsc.emory.edu/home/publications/health-sciences/emory-health/winter09/monkey-models.html

Social Behavior can be Inherited

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/science/genes-play-major-role-in-primate-social-behavior-study-finds.html?_r=0



 

Scientists Susanne Shultz, Christopher Opie and Quentin Atkinson from Oxford University have found that social behavior and role can be inherited. Their hypothesis for the study was that Primate species tended to have the same social structure as their close relatives, regardless of how and where they live. This theory goes against the previous one that related species living in different environments should display a variety of social structures. They did this by looking at a primate family tree of 217 primate species whose social organization was known. They found their hypothesis true. For example many of the Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques lived in several different places around the world and eat different foods. They all generally have the same social systems which suggests that their common ancestry and the inherited genes that shape behavior are a stronger influence than ecology on their social structure.

 

Findings of the Scientists at Oxford

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/nature10601.html

Drunken Monkeys

I’m sure many of you have heard that there is believed to be a genetic component that is suspect when it comes to being an alcoholic.  Studies to find this gene(s) and study human alcoholism have been strained in the past, due to human testing being somewhat “frowned upon”.  But this research may have found an easier way in which it can continue.  Vervet monkeys, a species that resides on St. Kitts Island, seem to mirror the drinking habits of humans.   The monkeys have been seen stealing alcohol from the local bars and many sleeping tourists.  Researchers collected 1000 of the monkeys from the island and kept them in a social group to observe their drinking habits. What they found was that the monkeys displayed different levels of alcohol consumption that was similar to humans, which ranged from “social drinker” to “binge drinker”.  The way in which the monkeys’ behavior mimics that of humans suggests that they too may have a geneitic component that causes them to fall into alcoholism.  Due to the fact that the vervet monkeys DNA shares 84.2% similarity to humans, scientists see them as fit to perform research on, with hopes that they will aid in the search for the genes associated with alcoholism in humans.