Evolution and legacy of East Asian aurochs
Jiawen Hou, Xiwen Guan, Xiaoting Xia, Yang Lyu, Xin Liu, Yuri Mazei, Ping Xie, Fengqin Chang, Xiaonan Zhang, Jialei Chen, Xinyi Li, Fengwei Zhang, Liangliang Jin, Xiaoyu Luo, Mikkel‐Holger S. Sinding, Xin Sun, Alessandro Achilli, Nicola Rambaldi Migliore, Dongju Zhang, Johannes A. Lenstra, Jianlin Han, Qiaomei Fu, Xinyi Liu, Xiaoming Zhang, Ningbo Chen, Chuzhao Lei, Hucai Zhang
Abstract
Aurochs (Bos primigenius), once widely distributed in Afro-Eurasia, became extinct in the early 1600 s. However, their phylogeography and relative contributions to domestic cattle remain unknown. In this study, we analyzed 16 genomes of ancient aurochs and three mitogenomes of ancient bison (Bison priscus) excavated in East Asia, dating from 43,000 to 3,590 years ago. These newly generated data with previously published genomic information on aurochs as well as ancient/extant domestic cattle worldwide through genome analysis. Our findings revealed significant genetic divergence between East Asian aurochs and their European, Near Eastern, and African counterparts on the basis of both mitochondrial and nuclear genomic data. Furthermore, we identified evidence of gene flow from East Asian aurochs into ancient and present-day taurine cattle, suggesting their potential role in facilitating the environmental adaptation of domestic cattle.