PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lin Zeng
AU  - Chen Ming
AU  - Yan Li
AU  - Ling-Yan Su
AU  - Yan-Hua Su
AU  - Newton O. Otecko
AU  - Ambroise Dalecky
AU  - Stephen Donnellan
AU  - Ken Aplin
AU  - Xiao-Hui Liu
AU  - Ying Song
AU  - Zhi-Bin Zhang
AU  - Ali Esmailizadeh
AU  - Saeed S. Sohrabi
AU  - Hojjat Asadollahpour Nanaei
AU  - He-Qun Liu
AU  - Ming-Shan Wang
AU  - Solimane Ag Atteynine
AU  - Gérard Rocamora
AU  - Fabrice Brescia
AU  - Serge Morand
AU  - David M. Irwin
AU  - Ming-sheng Peng
AU  - Yong-Gang Yao
AU  - Hai-Peng Li
AU  - Dong-Dong Wu
AU  - Ya-Ping Zhang
TI  - Evolutionary history of the brown rat: out of southern East Asia and selection
AID  - 10.1101/096800
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 096800
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/26/096800.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/26/096800.full
AB  - The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) is found wherever humans live and transmits many diseases, and its breeding produced the laboratory rat used widely in medical research. Here, we sequenced whole genomes from 118 rats to explore the origin and dispersal routes of the brown rat and the domestication of the laboratory rat. We showed that brown rats migrated about 3600 years ago from southern East Asia, rather than Northern Asia as formerly suggested, to the Middle East and then to Europe and Africa. Many genes involved in the immune system experienced positive selection in the wild brown rat, while genes involved in the nervous system and energy metabolism showed evidence of artificial selection during the domestication of laboratory strains. Our findings demystify the puzzling origin and migration of brown rats and reveal the impact of evolution and domestication on this animal.