(National Geographic, 14, May 2013) - Evolution shaped genes
in humans and dogs that correspond to diet, behaviour, and disease, according
to a new study.
The bond between dogs and humans is ancient and enduring.
Dogs snuggle up to us at night, gambol by our side during daily walks, and flop
adoringly at our feet when we crash on our couches. But new research shows that
the connection runs deeper than you might think. It is embedded in our genes.
Researchers from the University of Chicago and several
international institutions found that several groups of genes in humans and
dogs—including those related to diet and digestion, neurological processes, and
disease—have been evolving in parallel for thousands of years.
This parallel evolution was likely driven by the shared
environments of humans and dogs, wrote the authors in a study published May 14
in the journal Nature Communications.
"As domestication is often associated with large
increases in population density and crowded living conditions, these 'unfavourable'
environments might be the selective pressure that drove the rewiring of both
species," the authors surmise.
For example, living in crowded conditions with humans may
have conferred an advantage on less aggressive dogs, leading to more submissive
canines and eventually to the pets whose puppy-dog eyes gaze at us with
unconditional affection.
The study authors suggest that dogs were domesticated 32,000
years ago; that's much earlier than current estimates, which place
domestication at around 15,000 to 16,000 years ago.
"Thirty-two thousand is a little bit old," said
Bob Wayne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Los
Angeles. Although he does acknowledge that the timing of a split between wolves
and dogs has varied widely—ranging between 6,000 and 120,000 years ago.
The study authors also proposed that dog domestication
originated in Southeast Asia, rather than the Middle East, as others have
suggested.
The scientists involved in the study sequenced the genomes
of four gray wolves from Russia and China, three Chinese street dogs, and three
domesticated breeds—including a German shepherd, a Belgian malinois, and a
Tibetan mastiff.
They were then able to figure out which genes were
associated with domestication and how far back that shift may have occurred.
The team also looked at the dog genes selected for during domestication and compared
them with human genes.
"The history of dog domestication is often depicted as
a two-stage process," wrote Weiwei Zhai, a genetics researcher at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and a study co-author, in an email.
"The first stage is from wolves to dogs. The second stage is from dogs to
breeds." (Read "How to Build a Dog" in National Geographic
magazine.)
Southeastern Asia street dogs, including the Chinese street
dogs in the study, may be an evolutionary bridge between wolves and purebred
dogs due to their greater genetic diversity when compared with other street
dogs from around the world, Zhai explained. This would make the Chinese street
dogs a kind of "missing link" among canines.
When Zhai and colleagues took their canine sequences and
compared them with the human genome, the team found that sequences for things
such as the transport of neurotransmitters like serotonin, cholesterol
processing, and cancer have been selected for in both humans and dogs.
Though selection in the same gene in two different species,
known as convergent evolution, is rare in nature, said Zhai, their results
weren't too surprising. After all, humans and dogs have shared the same living
environment for years.
In addition to sharing genes that deal with diet and
behavior, dogs and humans also share diseases, including obesity,
obsessive-compulsive disorder, epilepsy, and some cancers including breast
cancer, wrote Ya-ping Zhang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in
Kunming (map), in an email.
This might be due to the fact that genes often have multiple
effects, explained Zhai. "Some of the effects will be beneficial, while
others can be deleterious. When the selective advantage outweighs the deleterious
cost, the gene can still be selected [for]."
The cancer-related genes the research team found evolving
together in both dogs and humans could be the result of processes like this,
said Zhai.
"This is nice that [their study is] based on complete
genome data," said UCLA's Wayne, who provided reference data the study
authors compared with their genetic sequences. Other studies have used only
snippets, such as mitochondrial DNA.
But he cautioned that comparing human and canine genomes can
be tricky, adding that the evaluation of canine sequences from other places in
addition to China and Russia would have helped in the dating of domestication
and in establishing its location.
Furthermore, Wayne said, without further comparisons between
humans and other domestic animals like goats or horses, it's hard to know
whether the parallel evolution in the genomes of humans and dogs is unique or
not.
Even so, he added, the study adds another chapter to the
story of dog domestication—a story far from over.
