Project description:The goal of the study was to test whether CBD103 genotype of North American gray wolves impacts the gene expression response to polyI:C or to live canine distemper virus. We established 24 primary cultures of epidermal keratinocytes from skin punches of North American gray wolves, and also generated an immortalized keratinocyte line and a CRISPR/Cas9 edited cell line. We evaluated the gene expression response of cells to either 24 hours challenge with 1 ug/ml polyI:C or to five days challenge with live canine distemper virus (100 TCID50/ml). Every challenged cell culture had a paired null control sample (plated and collected at same time points).
Project description:This study uses a custom made Nimblegen aCGH chip that targeted all segmental duplications in the canine genome to identify associated CNVs. A total of 23 hybridizations were performed in a panel of diverse dogs and a single wolf. This study focuses on the use a custom made Nimblegen aCGH chip to genotype 1,611 dog CNVs in 23 wolf-like canids (4 purebred dogs, one dingo, 15 gray wolves, one red wolf, one coyote and one golden jackal) to identify CNVs that may have arisen after domestication
Project description:Genomic sequencing of historical, ancient, and modern North American wolf-like canids: red wolves (Canis rufus), eastern wolves (Canis lycaon), coyotes (Canis latrans), and gray wolves (Canis lupus)
Project description:We sequenced total RNA from whole blood samples of 27 wild gray wolves from Yellowstone National Park. Gene expression level analysis of both male and female wolves, ranging from ages 0.8-8.8 years.
Project description:The grey wolf (Canis lupus) was the first species to give rise to a domestic population, and they remained widespread throughout the last Ice Age when many other large mammal species went extinct. Little is known, however, about the history and possible extinction of past wolf populations or when and where the wolf progenitors of the present-day dog lineage (Canis familiaris) lived1-8. Here we analysed 72 ancient wolf genomes spanning the last 100,000 years from Europe, Siberia and North America. We found that wolf populations were highly connected throughout the Late Pleistocene, with levels of differentiation an order of magnitude lower than they are today. This population connectivity allowed us to detect natural selection across the time series, including rapid fixation of mutations in the gene IFT88 40,000-30,000 years ago. We show that dogs are overall more closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia than to those from western Eurasia, suggesting a domestication process in the east. However, we also found that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive up to half of their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves, reflecting either an independent domestication process or admixture from local wolves. None of the analysed ancient wolf genomes is a direct match for either of these dog ancestries, meaning that the exact progenitor populations remain to be located.