Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Abstract

Previous studies show that humans have a large genomic deletion downstream of the Androgen Receptor gene that eliminates an ancestral mammalian regulatory enhancer that drives expression in developing penile spines and sensory vibrissae. Here we use a combination of large-scale sequence analysis and PCR amplification to demonstrate that the penile spine/vibrissa enhancer is missing in all humans surveyed and in the Neandertal and Denisovan genomes, but is present in DNA samples of chimpanzees and bonobos, as well as in multiple other great apes and primates that maintain some form of penile integumentary appendage and facial vibrissae. These results further strengthen the association between the presence of the penile spine/vibrissa enhancer and the presence of penile spines and macro- or micro- vibrissae in non-human primates as well as show that loss of the enhancer is both a distinctive and characteristic feature of the human lineage.

Publication Title

PLoS One

Volume

8

Issue

12

PubMed ID

24367647

Comments

This article was published in PloS One, Volume 8, Issue 12.

The published version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084258.

Copyright © 2013. CC BY 4.0.

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