Chinese Rhesus Macaque

Introduction

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The Chinese rhesus macaque(Macaca mulatta lasiota) is a subspecies of rhesus macaques that mainly resides in western and central China. The entire species has fur colors from auburn to dusty brown, with a marked lack of fur on theface and rump. Sexual dimorphism is present, as the males on average measure 53.2 cm high while the females measure 46.7 cm and the males weigh about 7.7 kg while females weigh about 5.34 kg. Both males and females have tails that range in length between 20.8 cm and 22.9 cm long.

Macaques live in a diverse group of habitats, mostly tropical and temperate and in swampy or arboreal areas. They are skilled swimmers, and have been seen as young as two days old swimming in the water. Rhesus macaques communicate with a variety of sounds, using coos and grunts for group movement, and shrill or irritating sounds for aggressive situations. The monkeys are well adapted to surviving alongside humans; therefore their diet is substantially drawn from human resources. They are omnivores, and can raid crops or garbage cans for sustenance. In areas with less of a human presence, they subsist off all sorts of plants, insects, sea creatures and bird eggs. A large portion of the rhesus macaque’s day is spent eating and sleeping.

In 2010 the Beijing Genomics Institute used a five-year old female Chinese rhesus macaque (CR) from the South-West of China for data sequencing and analyses. We sequenced the nuclear genome of the CR toobtain 142-Gb (CR) of high-quality sequence, representing 47-fold genome coverage for CR. The total size of the assembled CR genomes was about 2.84 Gb, providing 47-fold on average. The scaffolds were assigned to the chromosomes according to the synteny displayed with the Indian rhesus macaque (IR) and human genome sequences. About 97% of the CR scaffolds could be placed onto chromosomes. This data and analyses can be found on the link provided. Because of the similarity in anatomical and physiological structure to human beings, macaques are frequently used in research. In the past, macaques have helped with the development of vaccines for diseases like rabies, smallpox, and polio. This usage of the creature gives more than enough reasoning for sequencing the genome of the rhesus macaque, giving scientists a better understanding of the primate equivalent of a laboratory mouse. Also it allows some comparison to other sequenced Macaca, such as the Indian Rhesus macaque and the crab-eating macaque; something important to our understanding of the entire genus.

More information about Chinese Rhesus Macaque can be viewed at:http://macaque.genomics.org.cn/

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Citation
Until the publication of research papers on the whole-genome analysis of this species we would ask you to cite this dataset as: Yan, G; Zhang, G; Fang, X; Zhang, Y; Li, C; Ling, F; Cooper, DN; Li, O; Li, Y; van Gool, AJ; Du, H; Chen, J; Chen, R; Zhang, P; Huang, Z; Thompson, JR; Meng, Y; Bai, Y; Wang, J; Zhuo, M; Wang, T; Huang, Y; Wei, L; Li, J; Wang, Z; Hu, H; Le, L; Stenson, PD; Li, B; Liu, X; Ball, EV; An, N; Huang, Q; Zhang, Y; Fan, W; Zhang, X; Li, Y; Wang, W; Katze, MG; Su, B; Nielsen, R; Yang, H; Wang, J; Wang, X; Wang, J (2011): Genomic data from the Chinese Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta lasiota). GigaScience. doi:10.5524/100002
http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100002