The initial transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers occurred almost 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, the regions of the Middle East encompassing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They formed strong ties with the rodent-eating cats that were used as pest management in the earliest civilizations, conveniently.
According to a recent study from the University of Missouri, this change in human lifestyle was the impetus for the first domestication of cats, and as people started to travel the globe, they took their new feline companions with them.
Cat DNA was collected and analyzed from cats in and around the Fertile Crescent region, as well as from all over Europe, Asia, and Africa. Leslie A. Lyons, a feline geneticist and Gilbreath-McLorn endowed professor of comparative medicine in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine, compared nearly 200 different genetic markers.
Microsatellites, which mutate swiftly and provide information about recent cat populations and breed developments over the past few hundred years, were one of the major DNA markers that Lyons and his team analyzed. “Single nucleotide polymorphisms,” which are single-based changes seen across the genome and provide us with information about their ancient history thousands of years ago, were another important DNA marker we looked at. “We may begin to put the evolutionary history of cats together by analyzing and contrasting both indicators.”
The study’s analysis of feline genetics, according to Lyons, strongly supports the theory that cats were likely first domesticated only in the Fertile Crescent before migrating with humans throughout the world. She noted that while horses and cattle have experienced various domestication events brought on by humans in different parts of the world at different times, her analysis of feline genetics strongly supports this theory for cats. The genetic makeup of cats in western Europe, for example, is now very different from cats in southeast Asia, a phenomenon known as “isolation by distance,” as a result of feline genes being passed down to kittens during generations.
The fact that cats hunt vermin and can survive and reproduce on their own due to their natural tendencies means that we can legitimately refer to them as semi-domesticated, according to Lyons. “Cats once again seem to be a special animal,” the author says. “Unlike dogs and other domesticated animals, we haven’t really modified the habits of cats that much during the domestication process.”
Studies like these, according to Lyons, who has spent more than 30 years studying feline genetics, also support her larger research objective, which is to use cats as a biomedical model to study genetic disorders that affect both people and cats, such as polycystic kidney disease, blindness, and dwarfism.
According to Lyons, “Comparative genomics and precision medicine play crucial roles in the ‘One Health’ philosophy, which implies that whatever we can do to research the hereditary diseases that affect cats and how to treat them could one day help treat humans who have those diseases.” I’m creating genetic resources and techniques that will ultimately help cat health. “It is crucial to have a representative sample and comprehend the genetic diversity of cats globally while developing these tools so that our genetic toolbox can be helpful to cats all around the world, not only in one particular place.”
Lyons has spent her whole career working with cat breeders and research partners to build extensive databases of feline DNA that the scientific community can use, including cat genome sequencing from felines all over the world. In a study published in 2021, Lyons and colleagues discovered that the genetic structures of cats and humans are almost identical.
According to Lyons, “our efforts have helped stop the migration and passing-down of inherited genetic diseases around the world.” One example is polycystic kidney disease, which affected 38% of Persian cats when a genetic test for it was first introduced in 2004. “Now, thanks to our work, that number has greatly decreased, and our overarching goal is to eventually eradicate genetic illnesses in cats,”
The only effective medication for polycystic kidney disease at the moment causes harmful adverse effects, such as liver failure. Lyons is now developing a diet-based treatment study for people with the condition in collaboration with academics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
If the tests are effective, Lyons said, “we might be able to try it in humans as a more healthy, natural alternative to taking a medicine that might induce liver failure or other health problems.” We will keep working toward that goal, and it feels good to be a part of it.
According to a recent article in Heredity, “the genetics of randomly bred cats indicate that the Near East was the cradle of cat domestication.”
