| nerve fibre tracing of branches to the coracobrachialis muscle in a bornean orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). | a detailed anatomical analysis of the left brachial plexus, composed of the fourth cervical to first thoracic spinal nerve roots, was performed in an adult male orangutan obtained from the osaka museum of natural history. although the medial and posterior cords fused into a common trunk, a nerve fibre analysis revealed that the cords were not actually connected. a superficial branch (rs) running ventral to the musculocutaneous nerve (mc) and a deep branch (rp) running dorsal to the mc innervated ... | 2007 | 17266662 |
| new aspects of chromosomal evolution in the gorilla and the orangutan. | it is well-accepted that studies of chromosomal changes which have occurred during the evolution of the great apes and the human provide clues towards the phylogeny of these species. applying recently developed molecular cytogenetic approaches, this study on the chromosomes of the orangutan and the gorilla revealed the presence of cryptic, until now, unrecognized cytogenetic rearrangements mainly within the evolutionary dynamic subcentromeric and subtelomeric regions. on four orangutan chromosom ... | 2007 | 17273792 |
| structural analysis of the evolution of steroid specificity in the mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid receptors. | the glucocorticoid receptor (gr) and mineralocorticoid receptor (mr) evolved from a common ancestor. still not completely understood is how specificity for glucocorticoids (e.g. cortisol) and mineralocorticoids (e.g. aldosterone) evolved in these receptors. | 2007 | 17306029 |
| the shape of the hominoid proximal femur: a geometric morphometric analysis. | as part of the hip joint, the proximal femur is an integral locomotor component. although a link between locomotion and the morphology of some aspects of the proximal femur has been identified, inclusive shapes of this element have not been compared among behaviourally heterogeneous hominoids. previous analyses have partitioned complex proximal femoral morphology into discrete features (e.g. head, neck, greater trochanter) to facilitate conventional linear measurements. in this study, three-dime ... | 2007 | 17310545 |
| fiber digestibility by the orangutan (pongo abelii): in vitro and in vivo. | limited nutritional information exists on diets of free-ranging orangutans, pongo abelii and p. pygmaeus. although they are classified as frugivores, the chemical composition of their diet and their gastrointestinal anatomy suggest that they rely on fiber fermentation for a substantial portion of energy. however, the extent to which they can ferment fiber is not known. continuous culture systems, inoculated with orangutan fecal bacteria, were established to determine the fiber-digesting capacity ... | 2005 | 17312712 |
| anesthetic management of an orangutan (pongo abelii/pygmaeus) undergoing laparoscopic tubal ligation. | an adult hybrid orangutan (pongo abelii/pygmaeus) was presented to a veterinary teaching hospital for laparoscopic tubal ligation. the orangutan was immobilized with the use of injectable anesthetic agents, then orotracheally intubated. anesthesia was maintained with the use of isoflurane in oxygen, and positive-pressure ventilation was used to ensure adequate gas exchange. parameters monitored included arterial blood pressure, ecg, capnometry, and arterial blood gases. anesthesia was uneventful ... | 2006 | 17315439 |
| visceral and presumptive neural baylisascariasis in an orangutan (pongo pygmaeus). | a 32.5-year-old female hybrid orangutan (pongo pygmaeus) developed hind-limb stiffness that progressed to tetraparesis over 2 wk. repeated diagnostic evaluations, including serial magnetic resonance imaging of the central nervous system, revealed nonspecific lesions involving both the deep white and gray matter with an intact blood-brain barrier. multiple empirical treatments failed to produce improvement and the animal was humanely euthanized. histology of a granuloma in the ileum contained a n ... | 2006 | 17315445 |
| reversible anesthesia of southeast asian primates with medetomidine, zolazepam, and tiletamine. | medetomidine (0.02-0.06 mg/kg) in combination with zolazepam-tiletamine (0.8-2.3 mg/kg) were evaluated for reversible anesthesia in four species of southeast asian primates: bornean orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus), bornean gibbon (hylobates muelleri), long-tailed macaque (macaca fascicularis), and pig-tailed macaque (macaca nemestrina). twenty-three anesthetic procedures of captive-held and free-ranging primates were studied in sabah, malaysia. the induction was smooth and rapid. respiratory ... | 2006 | 17315446 |
| herpes simplex infection in a juvenile orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). | a juvenile orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) died after 8 days of diarrhea and vomiting. necropsy showed petechial hemorrhages in the skin, the myocardium, and the peritoneal membranes. the lungs were hyperemic and edematous, and the liver and spleen were enlarged. histologic changes consisted of interstitial pneumonia, hepatitis, and splenic hyperplasia. numerous eosinophilic intranuclear inclusion bodies were visible in pulmonary epithelial cells, hepatocytes, and splenic endothelial cells. ... | 2005 | 17315472 |
| cholesterol values in free-ranging gorillas (gorilla gorilla gorilla and gorilla beringei) and bornean orangutans (pongo pygmaeus). | cholesterol concentrations in captive gorillas and orangutans vary widely within species and average approximately 244 mg/dl for gorillas and 169 mg/dl for orangutans as published previously. the international species inventory system reports higher concentrations of 275 and 199 mg/dl for gorillas and orangutans, respectively. it is unknown whether these values were typical, influenced by captive management, or both. to answer this question, banked serum samples from free-ranging mountain gorill ... | 2006 | 17319127 |
| genomic relationships and speciation times of human, chimpanzee, and gorilla inferred from a coalescent hidden markov model. | the genealogical relationship of human, chimpanzee, and gorilla varies along the genome. we develop a hidden markov model (hmm) that incorporates this variation and relate the model parameters to population genetics quantities such as speciation times and ancestral population sizes. our hmm is an analytically tractable approximation to the coalescent process with recombination, and in simulations we see no apparent bias in the hmm estimates. we apply the hmm to four autosomal contiguous human-ch ... | 2007 | 17319744 |
| relative numerousness judgment and summation in young, middle-aged, and older adult orangutans (pongo pygmaeus abelii and pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). | the ability to select the larger of two quantities ranging from 1 to 5 (relative numerousness judgment [rnj[) and the ability to select the larger of two pairs of quantities with each pair ranging from 1 to 8 (summation) were evaluated in young, middle-aged, and older adult orangutans (7 pongo pygmaeus abelii and 2 pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). summation accuracy and rnj were similar to those of previous reports in apes; however, the pattern of age-related differences with regard to these tasks was ... | 2007 | 17324070 |
| transmission of human and macaque plasmodium spp. to ex-captive orangutans in kalimantan, indonesia. | data are lacking on the specific diseases to which great apes are susceptible and the transmission dynamics and overall impact of these diseases. we examined the prevalence of plasmodium spp. infections in semicaptive orangutans housed at the orangutan care center and quarantine, central kalimantan, indonesia, by using a combination of microscopic and dna molecular techniques to identify the plasmodium spp. in each animal. previous studies indicated 2 orangutan-specific plasmodium spp., but our ... | 2006 | 17326942 |
| mental rotation of anthropoid hands: a chronometric study. | it has been shown that mental rotation of objects and human body parts is processed differently in the human brain. but what about body parts belonging to other primates? does our brain process this information like any other object or does it instead maximize the structural similarities with our homologous body parts? we tried to answer this question by measuring the manual reaction time (mrt) of human participants discriminating the handedness of drawings representing the hands of four anthrop ... | 2007 | 17334535 |
| tempo and mode of evolution of the rh blood group genes before and after gene duplication. | the rh blood group genes became duplicated in a common ancestor of human-chimpanzee-gorilla. we compared the evolutionary rates of the rh blood group genes for each exon for branches connecting to humans, having duplicated rh loci, and to orangutan, gibbon, and old world monkeys, species having a single rh locus. our results show that evolutionary rates of nonsynonymous substitutions at exon 7 became accelerated in the human lineage. furthermore, we surveyed the sequence variation in the region ... | 2007 | 17334753 |
| full-length sequence analysis of the hla-drb1 locus suggests a recent origin of alleles. | the hla region harbors some of the most polymorphic loci in the human genome. among them is the class ii locus hla-drb1, with more than 400 known alleles. the age of the polymorphism and the rate at which new alleles are generated at hla loci has caused much controversy over the years. previous studies have mostly been restricted to the 270 base pairs that constitute the second exon and represent the most variable part of the gene. here, we investigate the evolutionary history of the hla-drb1 lo ... | 2007 | 17345114 |
| recent integrations of mammalian hmg retropseudogenes. | we propose that select retropseudogenes of the high mobility group nonhistone chromosomal protein genes have recently integrated into mammalian genomes on the basis of the high sequence identity of the copies to the cdna sequences derived from the original genes. these include the hmg1 gene family in mice and the hmgn2 family in humans. we investigated orthologous loci of several strains and species of mus for presence or absence of apparently young hmg1 retropseudogenes. three of four analysed ... | 2006 | 17406091 |
| do orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) know when they do not remember? | metacognition refers to the ability to monitor and control one's own cognitive activities such as memory. although recent studies have raised an interesting possibility that some species of nonhuman animals might possess such skills, subjects often required a numerous number of training trials to acquire the effective use of metacognitive responses. here, five orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) were tested whether they were able to escape spatial memory tests when they did not remember the location of ... | 2008 | 17437141 |
| orangutans use compliant branches to lower the energetic cost of locomotion. | within the forest canopy, the shortest gaps between tree crowns lie between slender terminal branches. while the compliance of these supports has previously been shown to increase the energetic cost of gap crossing in arboreal animals (e.g. alexander 1991 z. morphol. anthropol. 78, 315-320; demes et al. 1995 am. j. phys. anthropol. 96, 419-429), field observations suggest that some primates may be able to use support compliance to increase the energetic efficiency of locomotion. here, we calcula ... | 2007 | 17439848 |
| hla-e polymorphism in amerindians from mexico (mazatecans), colombia (wayu) and chile (mapuches): evolution of mhc-e gene. | human leukocyte antigen (hla)-e is a nonclassical class i (ib) gene with a restricted polymorphism. only eight dna alleles and three proteins of this gene have been described and their frequencies analyzed in caucasian, oriental, asian indian, and negroid populations. in the present study, hla-e polymorphism has been analyzed in six amerindian and mestizo populations from north and south america and compared with previously described populations. hla-e*0101 is the most frequent allele found in a ... | 2007 | 17445187 |
| mhc-f polymorphism and evolution. | the major histocompatibility complex (mhc)-f class ib locus shows a limited polymorphism, and the function of its mainly intracellular protein is not clear. we have identified human leukocyte antigen (hla)-f orthologous dna sequences in pongidae in order to study the mhc-f gene evolution and its products' function. hla-f orthologous complementary dna transcripts are found in chimpanzee and in the new primate species studied (bonobo, gorilla and orangutan). analyses of the predicted amino acid se ... | 2007 | 17445188 |
| hla-g polymorphism and evolution. | six proteins, one null allele and 22 human leukocyte antigen (hla)-g alleles were found in humans. bonobo, chimpanzee and gorilla only show one allele and orangutan shows five alleles. all cercopithecus alleles show stop codons at position 164 (macaca mulatta with seven dna alleles, macaca fascicularis with seven dna alleles and cercopithecus aethiops with three dna alleles). cotton-top tamarin new world monkeys showed 20 dna and protein alleles; the major histocompatibility complex (mhc)-g new ... | 2007 | 17445193 |
| spontaneous adenomyosis in the chimpanzee (pan troglodytes): a first report and review of the primate literature: case report. | adenomyosis is a non-neoplastic condition characterized by the presence of ectopic endometrium in the myometrium with hyperplasia of adjacent smooth muscle. common symptoms in women include debilitating pelvic pain and abnormal uterine bleeding, and the condition has been paradoxically associated with both multiparity and subfertility. adenomyosis spontaneously occurs in humans and some non-human primates, including the baboon and macaque, where it has been associated with primary infertility an ... | 2007 | 17452396 |
| orang-utan extinction threat shortens. | | 2007 | 17486700 |
| fluorescent (f) bodies in the spermatozoa of man and the great apes. | mature spermatozoa of the chimpanzee (pan troglodytes), the gorilla (gorilla gorilla), and the orangutan (pongo pygmaeus) were stained with quinacrine dihydrochloride. fluorescent (f) bodies were visualized in the spermatozoa of the chimpanzee and gorilla but were absent in the orangutan, in which there is no brilliant fluorescence in any chromosome. the f bodies appeared to be randomly located in the sperm heads of these two species, as they usually are in human spermatozoa. however, the propor ... | 1976 | 17494623 |
| a polymorphic structural rearrangement in the chromosomes of two populations of orangutan. | a rearranged chromosome 9 was found in 12 of 23 specimens of orangutan, 4 of bornean and 8 of sumatran origin. nine animals were heterozygous, and 3 were homozygous carriers for the variant chromosome, which was also traced in 4 other animals not studied by us. this type of chromosome rearrangement has been previously described (seuánez et al., 1976) and is probably the same chromosome shown by lucas et al. (1973) and reported by turleau et al. (1975) in other specimens. there is obviously a ver ... | 1976 | 17494624 |
| chlamydia trachomatis: milestones in clinical and microbiological diagnostics in the last hundred years: a review. | chlamydia trachomatis an obligate intracellular, gram-negative bacterium is the causative agent of several acute or chronic, local and systemic human diseases such as trachoma, oculogenital and neonatal infections. it was discovered in 1907 by halberstaedter and von prowazek who observed it in conjunctival scrapings from an experimentally infected orangutan. in the last hundred years the detection and study of the intracellular pathogens, including chlamydiae, passed through an enormous evolutio ... | 2007 | 17523388 |
| origin of human bipedalism as an adaptation for locomotion on flexible branches. | human bipedalism is commonly thought to have evolved from a quadrupedal terrestrial precursor, yet some recent paleontological evidence suggests that adaptations for bipedalism arose in an arboreal context. however, the adaptive benefit of arboreal bipedalism has been unknown. here we show that it allows the most arboreal great ape, the orangutan, to access supports too flexible to be negotiated otherwise. orangutans react to branch flexibility like humans running on springy tracks, by increasin ... | 2007 | 17540902 |
| molecular cloning and characterization of rab6 gene in duck. | rab (ras-like in rat brain) proteins are small gtp-binding proteins that belong to largest subfamily in the small g protein, which are important for molecular modulation of membrane in the vesicular trafficking pathways. we have cloned and sequenced full length cdna of rab6 gene in duck. the cdna sequence consists of 761 nucleotides and contains a complete open reading frame (orf) of 627 nucleotides; the putative protein includes 208 amino acids. the cds of duck rab6 gene shares 86.1-90.0% homol ... | 2007 | 17541837 |
| transmission of multiple traditions within and between chimpanzee groups. | field reports provide increasing evidence for local behavioral traditions among fish, birds, and mammals. these findings are significant for evolutionary biology because social learning affords faster adaptation than genetic change and has generated new (cultural) forms of evolution. orangutan and chimpanzee field studies suggest that like humans, these apes are distinctive among animals in each exhibiting over 30 local traditions. however, direct evidence is lacking in apes and, with the except ... | 2007 | 17555968 |
| phylogenetic conservation of the androgen receptor ar45 variant form in placental mammals. | a cdna coding for a tissue-specific ar45 variant form of the androgen receptor (ar) has recently been identified in humans, with highest expression levels found in heart. the deduced protein comprises the dna-binding domain, hinge region and ligand-binding domain of the ar, but not the n-terminal domain which is replaced by a unique, short, seven amino-acid-long stretch. this sequence is encoded by the mutually exclusive exon 1b, located between exons 1 and 2 of the human ar gene. as transcript ... | 2007 | 17574777 |
| evolution of killer cell ig-like receptor (kir) genes: definition of an orangutan kir haplotype reveals expansion of lineage iii kir associated with the emergence of mhc-c. | orangutan (pongo pygmaeus) mhc-c appears less evolved than human hla-c: popy-c is not fixed and its alleles encode only one (c1) of the two motifs for killer cell ig-like receptor (kir) ligands. to assess the structure and complexity of the orangutan kir locus, the complete nucleotide sequence of an orangutan kir haplotype was determined. the popykir locus is flanked by lilr and fcar and consists of seven genes and pseudogenes, two novel and five corresponding to known cdna. distinguishing all k ... | 2007 | 17579070 |
| presence and species identification of the gapeworm mammomonogamus laryngeus (railliet, 1899) (syngamidae: nematoda) in a semi-wild population of sumatran orangutan (pongo abelii) in indonesia. | one adult syngamid nematode parasite couple was found during routine clinical observation in quarantine at the former bohorok rehabilitation station from sputum of pongo abelli and determined as mammomonogamus laryngeus [railliet, a., 1899. syngame laryngieu du boeuf. comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances et mémoires de la société de biologie 11, 18-21]. this finding confirmed previous record of ova and adult syngamid nematodes, determined by collet et al. [collet, j.-z., galdikas, b.m.f., su ... | 2008 | 17597171 |
| raising the level: orangutans use water as a tool. | we investigated the use of water as a tool by presenting five orangutans (pongo abelii) with an out-of-reach peanut floating inside a vertical transparent tube. all orangutans collected water from a drinker and spat it inside the tube to get access to the peanut. subjects required an average of three mouthfuls of water to get the peanut. this solution occurred in the first trial and all subjects continued using this successful strategy in subsequent trials. the latency to retrieve the reward dra ... | 2007 | 17609175 |
| high diversity in functional properties of melanocortin 1 receptor (mc1r) in divergent primate species is more strongly associated with phylogeny than coat color. | we have characterized the biochemical function of the melanocortin 1 receptor (mc1r), a critical regulator of melanin synthesis, from 9 phylogenetically diverse primate species with varying coat colors. there is substantial diversity in melanocyte-stimulating hormone (msh) binding affinity and basal levels of activity in the cloned mc1rs. msh binding was lost independently in lemur and new world monkey lineages, whereas high basal levels of mc1r activity occur in lemurs and some new world monkey ... | 2007 | 17609536 |
| putting orang-utan population trends into perspective. | | 2007 | 17637350 |
| mapping human genetic ancestry. | the human genome is a mosaic with respect to its evolutionary history. based on a phylogenetic analysis of 23,210 dna sequence alignments from human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, and rhesus, we present a map of human genetic ancestry. for about 23% of our genome, we share no immediate genetic ancestry with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. this encompasses genes and exons to the same extent as intergenic regions. we conclude that about 1/3 of our genes started to evolve as human-sp ... | 2007 | 17660505 |
| orangutans modify their gestural signaling according to their audience's comprehension. | when people are not fully understood, they persist with attempts to communicate, elaborating their speech in order to better convey their meaning [1]. we investigated whether captive orangutans (pongo pygmaeus and pongo abelii) would use analogous communicative strategies in signaling to a human experimenter, and whether they could distinguish different degrees of misunderstanding. orangutans' behavior varied according to how well they had apparently been understood. when their aims were not met ... | 2007 | 17683939 |
| characterization and evolution of the novel gene family fam90a in primates originated by multiple duplication and rearrangement events. | genomic plasticity of human chromosome 8p23.1 region is highly influenced by two groups of complex segmental duplications (sds), termed repd and repp, that mediate different kinds of rearrangements. part of the difficulty to explain the wide range of phenotypes associated with 8p23.1 rearrangements is that repp and repd are not yet well characterized, probably due to their polymorphic status. here, we describe a novel primate-specific gene family, named fam90a (family with sequence similarity 90 ... | 2007 | 17684299 |
| age and biostratigraphic significance of the punung rainforest fauna, east java, indonesia, and implications for pongo and homo. | the punung fauna is a key component in the biostratigraphic sequence of java. it represents the most significant faunal turnover on the island in the last 1.5 million years, when stegodon and other archaic mammal species characteristic of earlier faunal stages were replaced by a fully modern fauna that included rainforest-dependent species such as pongo pygmaeus (orangutan). here, we report the first numerical ages for the punung fauna obtained by luminescence and uranium-series dating of the fo ... | 2007 | 17706269 |
| analysis of structure, function, and evolutionary origin of the ob gene product--leptin. | leptin, the ob gene product, is a 167 amino acid polypeptide known to play a key role in regulating the fat stores of the body and is found in all eukaryotes, including mammals, aves, and also in invertebrates. to gain insight into the structure-function relation and origin of leptin, we have analyzed the amino acid sequence of leptin from 23 species by computing the frequency of occurrence of amino acids, their secondary structure, sequence homology, et cetera. extensive conservation is observe ... | 2007 | 17718597 |
| ape affinities: orang-utan biology. | | 1989 | 17802268 |
| animal cognition: multimodal tactics of orangutan communication. | orangutans select different tactics for repairing failed communication, depending upon how well they are understood: they repeat signals if they are partially understood and switch tactics entirely if completely misunderstood. | 2007 | 17803926 |
| fertility and mortality patterns of captive bornean and sumatran orangutans: is there a species difference in life history? | across broad taxonomic groups, life history models predict that increased ecological predictability will lead to conservative investment in reproductive effort. within species, however, organisms are predicted to have increased reproductive rates under improved environmental conditions. it is not clear how these models apply to closely-related species. in this paper, we examine predictions from these models as applied to variability in reproductive rates between the two species of orangutans, po ... | 2008 | 17804037 |
| orangutan death and scavenging by pigs. | pongid remains are rarely recovered from tropical rain forests. observations of a bornean bearded pig (sus barbatus) scavenging an orangutan (pongo pygmaeus) carcass and the recovery of an orangutan skull fragment corroborates evidence from africa and suggests that the scavenging of wild pigs may play an important role in the destruction of pongid remains. | 1978 | 17847332 |
| a conserved gene family encodes transmembrane proteins with fibronectin, immunoglobulin and leucine-rich repeat domains (figler). | in mouse the cytokine interleukin-7 (il-7) is required for generation of b lymphocytes, but human il-7 does not appear to have this function. a bioinformatics approach was therefore used to identify il-7 receptor related genes in the hope of identifying the elusive human cytokine. | 2007 | 17854505 |
| saving the rainforest through health care: medicine as conservation in borneo. | this article gives an overview of rainforest conservation as it relates to human health and describes the context, design, and implementation of the kelay conservation health program (kchp). the kchp is a health program for indigenous people living in a critical area of orangutan rainforest habitat in indonesian borneo also developed to aid conservation efforts there. program design included consideration of both health and conservation goals, participatory planning in collaboration with the gov ... | 2007 | 17915544 |
| mast cell alpha and beta tryptases changed rapidly during primate speciation and evolved from gamma-like transmembrane peptidases in ancestral vertebrates. | human mast cell tryptases vary strikingly in secretion, catalytic competence, and inheritance. to explore the basis of variation, we compared genes from a range of primates, including humans, great apes (chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan), old- and new-world monkeys (macaque and marmoset), and a prosimian (galago), tracking key changes. our analysis reveals that extant soluble tryptase-like proteins, including alpha- and beta-like tryptases, mastins, and implantation serine proteases, likely evolve ... | 2007 | 17947681 |
| alu recombination-mediated structural deletions in the chimpanzee genome. | with more than 1.2 million copies, alu elements are one of the most important sources of structural variation in primate genomes. here, we compare the chimpanzee and human genomes to determine the extent of alu recombination-mediated deletion (armd) in the chimpanzee genome since the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages ( approximately 6 million y ago). combining computational data analysis and experimental verification, we have identified 663 chimpanzee lineage-specific deletions (in ... | 2007 | 17953488 |
| evidence for positive selection in the c-terminal domain of the cholesterol metabolism gene pcsk9 based on phylogenetic analysis in 14 primate species. | cholesterol homeostasis is maintained through finely tuned mechanisms regulating intestinal absorption, hepatic biosynthesis and secretion as well as plasma clearance. proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (pcsk9) is a secreted enzyme of the serine protease family that reduces cellular uptake of plasma low-density lipoprotein (ldl) cholesterol by promoting ldl receptor (ldl-r) degradation. species-specific positive selection has been noted in the ldlr promoter, leading to differential ex ... | 2007 | 17971861 |
| mechanical analysis of infant carrying in hominoids. | in all higher nonhuman primates, species survival depends upon safe carrying of infants clinging to body hair of adults. in this work, measurements of mechanical properties of ape hair (gibbon, orangutan, and gorilla) are presented, focusing on constraints for safe infant carrying. results of hair tensile properties are shown to be species-dependent. analysis of the mechanics of the mounting position, typical of heavier infant carrying among african apes, shows that both clinging and friction ar ... | 2008 | 18030438 |
| rapid facial mimicry in orangutan play. | emotional contagion enables individuals to experience emotions of others. this important empathic phenomenon is closely linked to facial mimicry, where facial displays evoke the same facial expressions in social partners. in humans, facial mimicry can be voluntary or involuntary, whereby its latter mode can be processed as rapid as within or at 1s. thus far, studies have not provided evidence of rapid involuntary facial mimicry in animals. this study assessed whether rapid involuntary facial mim ... | 2008 | 18077238 |
| molecular cloning and expression analyses of a novel swine gene--arf4. | the mrna differential display technique was performed to investigate the differences of gene expression in the longissimus muscle tissues from meishan and large white pigs. one novel gene that was differentially expressed was identified through semi-quantitative rt-pcr and the cdna complete sequence was then obtained using the rapid amplification of cdna ends (race) method. the nucleotide sequence of the gene is not homologous to any of the known porcine genes. the sequence prediction analysis r ... | 2009 | 18157702 |
| urinary c-peptide of insulin as a non-invasive marker of energy balance in wild orangutans. | assessment of energetic condition is a critical tool for behavioral and reproductive ecologists. however, accurate quantification of energy intake and expenditure is labor-intensive, and it can be problematic for field scientists to obtain regular data on individual animals. c-peptide, a polypeptide segment of the proinsulin molecule that is secreted along with insulin in an equimolar relationship, can be measured in urine, and thus offers a potential means for the non-invasive assessment of ene ... | 2008 | 18255067 |
| reproductive parameters over a 37-year period of free-ranging female borneo orangutans at sepilok orangutan rehabilitation centre. | we analysed the reproductive parameters of free-ranging female orangutans at sepilok orangutan rehabilitation centre (sorc) on borneo island, sabah, malaysia. fourteen adult females produced 28 offspring in total between 1967 and 2004. the average censored interbirth interval (ibi) (i.e. offspring was still alive when mother produced a next offspring) was 6 years. this was shorter than censored ibis reported in the wild but similar to ibis reported for those in captivity. the nonparametric survi ... | 2008 | 18297473 |
| muscle architecture of the upper limb in the orangutan. | we dissected the left upper limb of a female orangutan and systematically recorded muscle mass, fascicle length, and physiological cross-sectional area (pcsa), in order to quantitatively clarify the unique muscle architecture of the upper limb of the orangutan. comparisons of the musculature of the dissected orangutan with corresponding published chimpanzee data demonstrated that in the orangutan, the elbow flexors, notably m. brachioradialis, tend to exhibit greater pcsas. moreover, the digital ... | 2008 | 18306980 |
| chimerism, point mutation, and truncation dramatically transformed mast cell delta-tryptases during primate evolution. | tryptases are serine peptidases stored in mast cell granules. rodents express 2 soluble tryptases, mast cell proteases (mcps) 6 and 7. human alpha- and beta-tryptases are orthologs of mcp-6. however, much of the ancestral mcp-7 ortholog was replaced by parts of other tryptases, creating chimeric delta-tryptase. human delta-tryptase's limited activity is hypothesized to be due to truncation and processing mutations. | 2008 | 18325577 |
| restriction of foamy viruses by primate trim5alpha. | foamy viruses (fvs) are unconventional retroviruses with a replication strategy that is significantly different from orthoretroviruses and bears some homology to that of hepadnaviruses. although some cellular proteins, such as apobec3, have been reported to block fvs, no restriction by trim5alpha has been described to date. the sensitivity of three fv isolates of human-chimpanzee or prototypic (pfv), macaque (sfvmac), and feline (ffv) origin to a variety of primate trim5alphas was therefore test ... | 2008 | 18367529 |
| evaluating orangutan census techniques using nest decay rates: implications for population estimates. | an accurate estimate for orangutan nest decay time is a crucial factor in commonly used methods for estimating orangutan population size. decay rates are known to vary, but the decay process and, thus, the temporal and spatial variation in decay time are poorly understood. we used established line-transect methodology to survey orangutan nests in a lowland forest in east kalimantan, indonesia, and monitored the decay of 663 nests over 20 months. using markov chain analysis we calculated a decay ... | 2008 | 18372567 |
| a macroscopic examination of m. biceps femoris and m. gluteus maximus in the orangutan. | the musculature of the hip and thigh in the orangutan has been described previously. anatomically, there are various descriptions among primates in those structures, in particular, the relationship between m. biceps femoris and m. gluteus maximus, their derivatives, and the muscle segment. however, a detailed innervation system to this ischiofemoral part has not been described, thus there is still uncertainty as to with which muscle it is associated. in this analysis, we examined the gross anato ... | 2008 | 18388419 |
| analysis of chimpanzee history based on genome sequence alignments. | population geneticists often study small numbers of carefully chosen loci, but it has become possible to obtain orders of magnitude for more data from overlaps of genome sequences. here, we generate tens of millions of base pairs of multiple sequence alignments from combinations of three western chimpanzees, three central chimpanzees, an eastern chimpanzee, a bonobo, a human, an orangutan, and a macaque. analysis provides a more precise understanding of demographic history than was previously av ... | 2008 | 18421364 |
| prevalence, whole genome characterization and phylogenetic analysis of hepatitis b virus in captive orangutan and gibbon. | hepatitis b virus (hbv) is a public health problem worldwide and apart from infecting humans, hbv has been found in non-human primates. | 2008 | 18466280 |
| [complete sequence determination and phylogenetic analysis of fkn among seven higher primates including homonids and old world monkeys]. | to obtain full-length fkn nucleotide sequences of homonids including human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan and gibbon, and old world monkeys including macaque and leaf monkey and make phylogenetic analysis, three exons of fkn were amplified by degenerated pcr using obtained peripheral blood cells dna as template which was extracted from homonids and old world monkeys. after extracting and purifying from agarose gels, pcr products were sequenced and then spliced by using bioedit. all the fkn sequ ... | 2008 | 18487149 |
| riverine effects on mitochondrial structure of bornean orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) at two spatial scales. | we examined mitochondrial dna control region sequences of 73 kinabatangan orangutans to test the hypothesis that the phylogeographical structure of the bornean orangutan is influenced by riverine barriers. the lower kinabatangan wildlife sanctuary contains one of the most northern populations of orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) on borneo and is bisected by the kinabatangan river, the longest river in sabah. orang-utan samples on either side of the river were strongly differentiated with a high phi(st ... | 2008 | 18494768 |
| reproductive life history traits of female orangutans (pongo spp.). | data from wild populations demonstrate that orangutans have the slowest life history of all the great apes. in this chapter, we provide an overview of reproduction and life history traits of female orangutans in the wild and captivity. this comparison of wild and captive data illustrates the variability that exists for orangutans. wild orangutan females first reproduce at a mean age of 15.4 years, with an age range of 13-18 years, and they have a mean interbirth interval of 9.3 years. wild male ... | 2008 | 18523377 |
| chimpanzee (pan troglodytes) and orangutan (pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use. | planning for future needs has traditionally been considered to be restricted to human cognition. although recent studies on great ape and corvid cognition challenge this belief, the phylogenesis of human planning remains largely unknown. the complex skill for future planning has not yet been satisfactorily established in any other extant primate species than our own. in humans, planning for future needs rely heavily on two overarching capacities, both of which lie at the heart of our cognition: ... | 2008 | 18553113 |
| scipio: using protein sequences to determine the precise exon/intron structures of genes and their orthologs in closely related species. | for many types of analyses, data about gene structure and locations of non-coding regions of genes are required. although a vast amount of genomic sequence data is available, precise annotation of genes is lacking behind. finding the corresponding gene of a given protein sequence by means of conventional tools is error prone, and cannot be completed without manual inspection, which is time consuming and requires considerable experience. | 2008 | 18554390 |
| hominoid seminal protein evolution and ancestral mating behavior. | hominoid mating systems show extensive variation among species. the degree of sexual dimorphism in body size and canine size varies among primates in accordance with their mating system, as does the testes size and the consistency of ejaculated semen, in response to differing levels of sperm competition. to investigate patterns of evolution at hominoid seminal proteins and to make inferences regarding the mating systems of extinct taxa, we sequenced the entire coding region of the prostate-speci ... | 2008 | 18561295 |
| estimation of hominoid ancestral population sizes under bayesian coalescent models incorporating mutation rate variation and sequencing errors. | estimation of population parameters for the common ancestors of humans and the great apes is important in understanding our evolutionary history. in particular, inference of population size for the human-chimpanzee common ancestor may shed light on the process by which the 2 species separated and on whether the human population experienced a severe size reduction in its early evolutionary history. in this study, the bayesian method of ancestral inference of rannala and yang (2003. bayes estimati ... | 2008 | 18603620 |
| a comparative quantitative analysis of cytoarchitecture and minicolumnar organization in broca's area in humans and great apes. | broca's area was identified in the inferior frontal gyrus of chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and orangutan brains through direct cytoarchitectonic comparison with human brains. across species, broca's area comprises brodmann's areas 44 and 45. we found that these areas exhibited similar cytoarchitectonic characteristics in all species examined. we analyzed the minicolumnar organization of cells in layer iii of broca's area in 11 human and 9 great ape specimens. a semiautomated method was used to an ... | 2008 | 18612968 |
| evolution of a complex minisatellite dna sequence. | minisatellites are tandem repeats of short dna units widely distributed in genomes. however, the information on their dynamics in a phylogenetic context is very limited. here we have studied the organization of the msh43 locus in several species of primates and from these data we have reconstructed the evolutionary history of this complex minisatellite. overall, with the exception of gibbon, msh43 has an organization that is asymmetric, since the distribution of repeats is distinct between the 5 ... | 2008 | 18723095 |
| perceived vaccination status in ecotourists and risks of anthropozoonoses. | anthropozoonotic (human to nonhuman animal) transmission of infectious disease poses a significant threat to wildlife. a large proportion of travelers to tropical regions are not protected against vaccine-preventable illnesses, and a majority of these travelers demonstrate poor recall of actual vaccination status. here we characterize self-perceived vaccination status among a large sample of ecotourists at the sepilok orangutan rehabilitation centre, sabah, malaysia. despite their recognized tra ... | 2008 | 18810550 |
| repeat laparotomy for the treatment of septic peritonitis in a bornean orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). | a 9-yr-old female bornean orangutan (pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) presented with a 48-hr history of depression, lethargy, anorexia, and mucoid discharge from the rectum. clinical, radiographic, and ultrasonographic examination demonstrated the presence of multiple distended loops of intestine, intestinal adhesions, and free gas within the abdomen. during exploratory laparotomy, fibrinopurulent diffuse peritonitis as a result of a ruptured intrapelvic abscess with associated large bowel adhesions was ... | 2008 | 18817016 |
| sex-biased evolutionary forces shape genomic patterns of human diversity. | comparisons of levels of variability on the autosomes and x chromosome can be used to test hypotheses about factors influencing patterns of genomic variation. while a tremendous amount of nucleotide sequence data from across the genome is now available for multiple human populations, there has been no systematic effort to examine relative levels of neutral polymorphism on the x chromosome versus autosomes. we analyzed approximately 210 kb of dna sequencing data representing 40 independent noncod ... | 2008 | 18818765 |
| chromosomal evolution of the pkd1 gene family in primates. | the autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (adpkd) is mostly caused by mutations in the pkd1 (polycystic kidney disease 1) gene located in 16p13.3. moreover, there are six pseudogenes of pkd1 that are located proximal to the master gene in 16p13.1. in contrast, no pseudogene could be detected in the mouse genome, only a single copy gene on chromosome 17. the question arises how the human situation originated phylogenetically. to address this question we applied comparative fish-mapping of ... | 2008 | 18822117 |
| evolutionary analysis of the highly dynamic chek2 duplicon in anthropoids. | segmental duplications (sds) are euchromatic portions of genomic dna (> or = 1 kb) that occur at more than one site within the genome, and typically share a high level of sequence identity (>90%). approximately 5% of the human genome is composed of such duplicated sequences. here we report the detailed investigation of chek2 duplications. chek2 is a multiorgan cancer susceptibility gene encoding a cell cycle checkpoint kinase acting in the dna-damage response signalling pathway. the continuous p ... | 2008 | 18831734 |
| retrocopy contributions to the evolution of the human genome. | evolution via point mutations is a relatively slow process and is unlikely to completely explain the differences between primates and other mammals. by contrast, 45% of the human genome is composed of retroposed elements, many of which were inserted in the primate lineage. a subset of retroposed mrnas (retrocopies) shows strong evidence of expression in primates, often yielding functional retrogenes. | 2008 | 18842134 |
| evolution of the dentition of the orangutan. | | 1948 | 18877118 |
| primate cathelicidin orthologues display different structures and membrane interactions. | the human cathelicidin ll-37 displays both direct antibacterial activities and the capacity to modulate host-cell activities. these depend on structural characteristics that are subject to positive selection for variation, as observed in a previous analysis of the camp gene (encoding ll-37) in primates. the altered balance between cationic and anionic residues in different primate orthologues affects intramolecular salt-bridging and influences the stability of the helical conformation and tenden ... | 2009 | 18922132 |
| comparative sequence analysis of primate subtelomeres originating from a chromosome fission event. | subtelomeres are concentrations of interchromosomal segmental duplications capped by telomeric repeats at the ends of chromosomes. the nature of the segments shared by different sets of human subtelomeres reflects their high rate of recent interchromosomal exchange. here, we characterize the rearrangements incurred by the 15q subtelomere after it arose from a chromosome fission event in the common ancestor of great apes. we used fish, sequencing of genomic clones, and pcr to map the breakpoint o ... | 2009 | 18952852 |
| evog: a database for evolutionary analysis of overlapping genes. | overlapping genes are defined as a pair of genes whose transcripts are overlapped. recently, many cases of overlapped genes have been investigated in various eukaryotic organisms; however, their origin and transcriptional control mechanism has not yet been clearly determined. in this study, we implemented evolutionary visualizer for overlapping genes (evog), a web-based db with a novel visualization interface, to investigate the evolutionary relationship between overlapping genes. using this tec ... | 2009 | 18986995 |
| the ucsc genome browser database: update 2009. | the ucsc genome browser database (gbd, http://genome.ucsc.edu) is a publicly available collection of genome assembly sequence data and integrated annotations for a large number of organisms, including extensive comparative-genomic resources. in the past year, 13 new genome assemblies have been added, including two important primate species, orangutan and marmoset, bringing the total to 46 assemblies for 24 different vertebrates and 39 assemblies for 22 different invertebrate animals. the gbd dat ... | 2009 | 18996895 |
| ensembl 2009. | the ensembl project (http://www.ensembl.org) is a comprehensive genome information system featuring an integrated set of genome annotation, databases, and other information for chordate, selected model organism and disease vector genomes. as of release 51 (november 2008), ensembl fully supports 45 species, and three additional species have preliminary support. new species in the past year include orangutan and six additional low coverage mammalian genomes. major additions and improvements to ens ... | 2009 | 19033362 |
| species-specific distributions of tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons in the prefrontal cortex of anthropoid primates. | in this study, we assessed the distribution of cortical neurons immunoreactive for tyrosine hydroxylase (th) in prefrontal cortical regions of humans and nonhuman primate species. immunohistochemical methods were used to visualize th-immunoreactive (th-ir) neurons in areas 9 (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and 32 (anterior paracingulate cortex). the study sample included humans, great apes (chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan), one lesser ape (siamang), and old world monkeys (golden guenon, ... | 2009 | 19041377 |
| a case of spontaneous acquisition of a human sound by an orangutan. | the capacity of nonhuman primates to actively modify the acoustic structure of existing sounds or vocalizations in their repertoire appears limited. several studies have reported population or community differences in the acoustical structure of nonhuman primate long distance calls and have suggested vocal learning as a mechanism for explaining such variation. in addition, recent studies on great apes have indicated that there are repertoire differences between populations. some populations have ... | 2009 | 19052691 |
| methods for calculating activity budgets compared: a case study using orangutans. | the results of comparisons of behavioral data between individuals, age-sex classes, seasons, sites and possibly even species may depend on sample size and the computational method used. to establish whether these are valid concerns, we compared results for percentage time spent feeding on major food types (fruit, leaves, flowers, invertebrates, bark, pith and other) for two orangutan populations in sabangau (24 months) and tuanan (29 months), indonesian borneo. both the minimum follow limit incl ... | 2009 | 19065642 |
| biomechanical study of grasping according to the volume of the object: human versus non-human primates. | the evolution of the precision grips, in which an object is held between the distal surfaces of thumb and fingers and the power grip, in which an object is grasped with the palm, is poorly understood in spite of hypothesis stipulating an evolution from power toward precision grips. in human, numerous studies have shown that the external factors such as the size or the form of an object influenced grasp patterns whereas in non-human primates, those parameters are poorly known. the objective of th ... | 2009 | 19100551 |
| calculated reciprocity after all: computation behind token transfers in orang-utans. | transfers and services are frequent in the animal kingdom. however, there is no clear evidence in animals that such transactions are based on weighing costs and benefits when giving or returning favours and keeping track of them over time (i.e. calculated reciprocity). we tested two orang-utans (pongo pygmaeus abelii) in a token-exchange paradigm, in which each individual could exchange a token for food with the experimenter but only after first obtaining the token from the other orang-utan. eac ... | 2009 | 19126529 |
| chemical characterization of oligosaccharides in chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan, and siamang milk or colostrum. | neutral and acidic oligosaccharides were isolated from the milk or colostrum of four great ape species (chimpanzee (pan troglodytes), bonobo (pan paniscus), gorilla (gorilla gorilla), and orangutan (pongo pygmaeus)) and one lesser ape species (siamang (symphalangus syndactylus)), and their chemical structures were characterized by (1)h-nmr spectroscopy. oligosaccharides containing the type ii unit (gal(beta1-4)glcnac) were found exclusively (gorilla and siamang) or predominately (chimpanzee, bon ... | 2009 | 19164487 |
| evolutionary toggling of the mapt 17q21.31 inversion region. | using comparative sequencing approaches, we investigated the evolutionary history of the european-enriched 17q21.31 mapt inversion polymorphism. we present a detailed, bac-based sequence assembly of the inverted human h2 haplotype and compare it to the sequence structure and genetic variation of the corresponding 1.5-mb region for the noninverted h1 human haplotype and that of chimpanzee and orangutan. we found that inversion of the mapt region is similarly polymorphic in other great ape species ... | 2008 | 19165922 |
| uterine adenomyosis in an orang-utan (pongo abelii/pygmaeus). | a 48-year-old, multiparous, female hybrid orang-utan (pongo abelii/pygmaeus) was investigated after a 3-year history of irregular and excessively heavy menstrual bleeding. opportunistic pelvic examinations over a 2.5-year period were non-diagnostic. medical therapy was not effective. a subtotal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-ovariectomy was performed. a pedunculated mass spanning 90% of the uterine lumen was seen grossly, and histopathology confirmed uterine adenomyosis. adenomyosis is def ... | 2009 | 19178483 |
| superior olivary complex organization and cytoarchitecture may be correlated with function and catarrhine primate phylogeny. | in the mammalian auditory system, the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body and the lateral superior olive (mntb-lso system) contribute to binaural intensity processing and lateralization. localization precision varies with the sound frequencies. as recency of common ancestry with human beings increases, primates have improved low-frequency sensitivity and reduced sensitivity to higher frequencies. the medial part of the mntb is devoted to higher frequency processing. thus, its high-frequency-dep ... | 2009 | 19184100 |
| simultaneous history reconstruction for complex gene clusters in multiple species. | genomic intervals that contain a cluster of similar genes are of extreme biological interest, but difficult to sequence and analyze. one goal for interspecies comparisons of such intervals is to reconstruct a parsimonious series of duplications, deletions, and speciation events (a putative evolutionary history) that could have created the contemporary clusters from their last common ancestor. we describe a new method for reconstructing such an evolutionary scenario for a given set of intervals f ... | 2009 | 19209701 |
| a burst of segmental duplications in the genome of the african great ape ancestor. | it is generally accepted that the extent of phenotypic change between human and great apes is dissonant with the rate of molecular change. between these two groups, proteins are virtually identical, cytogenetically there are few rearrangements that distinguish ape-human chromosomes, and rates of single-base-pair change and retrotransposon activity have slowed particularly within hominid lineages when compared to rodents or monkeys. studies of gene family evolution indicate that gene loss and gai ... | 2009 | 19212409 |
| blue eyes in lemurs and humans: same phenotype, different genetic mechanism. | almost all mammals have brown or darkly-pigmented eyes (irises), but among primates, there are some prominent blue-eyed exceptions. the blue eyes of some humans and lemurs are a striking example of convergent evolution of a rare phenotype on distant branches of the primate tree. recent work on humans indicates that blue eye color is associated with, and likely caused by, a single nucleotide polymorphism (rs12913832) in an intron of the gene herc2, which likely regulates expression of the neighbo ... | 2009 | 19278018 |
| two cases of mother-infant cannibalism in orangutans. | observations of ape cannibalism have to this point been limited to chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) where it is associated with infanticide and consumption by unrelated individuals (watts and mitani, primates 41(4):357-365, 2000). here we report for the first time observations of two unrelated female sumatran orangutans (pongo abelii) cannibalizing the remains of their infants on different occasion, a behavior never before reported in any ape species. the two orangutans were wild-born rehabilitated ... | 2009 | 19319628 |
| inhibition of cathelicidin activity by bacterial exopolysaccharides. | the interaction of bacterial exopolysaccharides, produced by opportunistic lung pathogens, with antimicrobial peptides of the innate primate immune system was investigated. the exopolysaccharides were produced by pseudomonas aeruginosa, inquilinus limosus and clinical isolates of the burkholderia cepacia complex, bacteria that are all involved in lung infections of cystic fibrosis patients. the effects of the biological activities of three orthologous cathelicidins from homo sapiens sapiens, pon ... | 2009 | 19400793 |
| captive and wild orangutan (pongo sp.) survivorship: a comparison and the influence of management. | for managers of captive populations it is important to know whether their management provides a species with the physical and social environment that maximizes its survivorship. to determine this, survivorship comparisons with wild populations and long-term evaluations of captive populations are important. here we provide both for orangutans. we show that survivorship has increased during the past 60 years for captive orangutan populations in zoos. in addition, we show that survivorship of capti ... | 2009 | 19434629 |
| structure dependence of biological activities for primate cathelicidins. | we have analysed the effects of variations in orang-utan (ppy), rhesus macaque (mmu) and leaf eater (pob) monkey orthologues of the human cathelicidin ll-37, on a range of relevant biological activities. these host defence peptides range in cationicity from +4 to +10, and while the more cationic pob and mmurl-37 are in a monomeric and unstructured form in bulk solution (f-form), the human and ppyll-37 are in an aggregated/helical form (a-form). the in vitro antibacterial activity depended strong ... | 2009 | 19472166 |
| restorative dental treatment of a canine tooth in a bornean orang utan. | | 2009 | 19476086 |