A useful skin disease

The genome of an extinct sea cow has been decoded

Tatiana Matveeva, "Scientific Russia"

An international research team from Germany and the USA reconstructed the genome of an extinct species of sea cow from the fossil bone remains of twelve different individuals. The results revealed the genes responsible for the development of cortical-like skin, the press service of the University of Leipzig reports. The results of the work are published in the journal Science Advances (Le Duc et al., Genomic basis for skin phenotype and cold adaptation in the extinct Steller's sea cow).

The Steller's (or sea) cow is an extinct mammal species from the order sirens. The animal was discovered in 1741 by Georg Wilhelm Steller and later named after him. The 18th-century naturalist was interested not only in the enormous size of this species, but also in its unusual, bark-like skin. Such a crust-like structure of the epidermis is not found in related sirens, which today live exclusively in tropical waters. Scientists assumed that the skin of the Steller cow had hardened due to parasites. Another hypothesis: the "bark" could well preserve the body and thus protect the sea cow from the cold during the ice age.

The latest study revealed functional changes in the paleogenome of the Steller sea cow. These changes were responsible for the development of the animal's bark-like skin and adaptation to cold.

Comparing the genomes of the Steller cow and its closest relative, the dugong, scientists found that the genes necessary for the normal structure of the outermost layer of the epidermis were "turned off" in the sea cow. Humans also have these genes. "Hereditary defects in these so-called lipoxygenase genes lead to ichthyosis in humans. This is characterized by thickening and hardening of the upper layer of the skin with large scales. The disease is also known as "fish scale disease"," notes Torsten Schoeneberg from the University of Leipzig, one of the authors of the study.

In addition, the results revealed a sharp decline in the population of the Steller cow. This began 500 thousand years before the species was discovered, and may have contributed to its extinction at the end of the XVIII century.

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