Publications by authors named "Michael J Montague"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how genetic variations that influence gene regulation, specifically through DNA methylation, contribute to differences in traits among rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago Island, Puerto Rico.
  • Researchers utilized bisulfite sequencing to assess DNA methylation at over 555,000 CpG sites across 573 macaque blood samples, discovering significant genetic effects on methylation levels from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
  • Findings revealed that 69.12% of the investigated CpGs had a genetic influence on their methylation (meQTL), which were predominantly located in regions associated with gene expression, highlighting genetic factors that drive phenotypic diversity in these primates.
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Phenotypic aging is ubiquitous across mammalian species, suggesting shared underlying mechanisms of aging. Aging is linked to molecular changes to DNA methylation and gene expression, and environmental factors, such as severe external challenges or adversities, can moderate these age-related changes. Yet, it remains unclear whether environmental adversities affect gene regulation via the same molecular pathways as chronological, or 'primary', aging.

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  • Researchers are utilizing genetic diversity in rhesus macaques to better understand human diseases by sequencing 374 genes related to retinal and neurodevelopmental disorders in 1,845 macaques.
  • They identified over 47,000 genetic variants, many of which are shared with human populations, and developed a machine learning tool that effectively predicts the pathogenicity of these genetic variants.
  • The study includes the identification of a specific model for autosomal dominant optic atrophy and features a public website that provides access to genetic data from over 2,000 rhesus macaques.
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  • There are noticeable sex differences in how often certain neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders occur in humans, prompting research in other species to understand these differences better.
  • In a study using female and male rhesus macaques, researchers created a large dataset to analyze gene expression patterns related to sex biases, revealing similarities to human conditions like autism.
  • The study found that genes with sex biases show higher genetic variability and specific expression in different tissues, suggesting these genes could evolve quickly. This research supports using rhesus macaques as a model to study sex differences in neurological diseases.
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Objectives: Interpretations of the primate and human fossil record often rely on the estimation of somatic dimensions from bony measures. Both somatic and skeletal variation have been used to assess how primates respond to environmental change. However, it is unclear how well skeletal variation matches and predicts soft tissue.

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Objectives: Estimation of body mass from skeletal metrics can reveal important insights into the paleobiology of archeological or fossil remains. The standard approach constructs predictive equations from postcrania, but studies have questioned the reliability of traditional measures. Here, we examine several skeletal features to assess their accuracy in predicting body mass.

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Biological relatedness is a key consideration in studies of behavior, population structure, and trait evolution. Except for parent-offspring dyads, pedigrees capture relatedness imperfectly. The number and length of DNA segments that are identical-by-descent (IBD) yield the most precise estimates of relatedness.

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Increasing age is associated with dysregulated immune function and increased inflammation-patterns that are also observed in individuals exposed to chronic social adversity. Yet we still know little about how social adversity impacts the immune system and how it might promote age-related diseases. Here, we investigated how immune cell diversity varied with age, sex and social adversity (operationalized as low social status) in free-ranging rhesus macaques.

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Social adversity can increase the age-associated risk of disease and death, yet the biological mechanisms that link social adversities to aging remain poorly understood. Long-term naturalistic studies of nonhuman animals are crucial for integrating observations of social behavior throughout an individual's life with detailed anatomical, physiological, and molecular measurements. Here, we synthesize the body of research from one such naturalistic study system, Cayo Santiago, which is home to the world's longest continuously monitored free-ranging population of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

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Cataloging the diverse cellular architecture of the primate brain is crucial for understanding cognition, behavior, and disease in humans. Here, we generated a brain-wide single-cell multimodal molecular atlas of the rhesus macaque brain. Together, we profiled 2.

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While skin microbes are known to mediate human health and disease, there has been minimal research on the interactions between skin microbiota, social behavior, and year-to-year effects in non-human primates-important animal models for translational biomedical research. To examine these relationships, we analyzed skin microbes from 78 rhesus macaques living on Cayo Santiago Island, Puerto Rico. We considered age, sex, and social group membership, and characterized social behavior by assessing dominance rank and patterns of grooming as compared to nonsocial behaviors.

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Monitoring genetic diversity in wild populations is a central goal of ecological and evolutionary genetics and is critical for conservation biology. However, genetic studies of nonmodel organisms generally lack access to species-specific genotyping methods (e.g.

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Nonhuman primates (NHPs) are vital translational research models due to their high genetic, physiological, and anatomical homology with humans. The "golden" rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) phenotype is a naturally occurring, inherited trait with a visually distinct pigmentation pattern resulting in light blonde colored fur. Retinal imaging also reveals consistent hypopigmentation and occasional foveal hypoplasia.

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  • *Current control methods focus on managing sand fly populations and their reservoirs due to challenges like drug resistance and the toxicity of existing treatments.
  • *Researchers sequenced the genomes of two key sand fly species to better understand their biology and genetic diversity, paving the way for improved strategies to combat the spread of Leishmania parasites.
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  • Social adversity may heighten the risk of disease and death as individuals age, but the biological links between these factors are not well understood.
  • This paper reviews research from a long-term study of rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago Island, focusing on age-related changes in various biological markers such as morphology, gene regulation, and immune function.
  • The effects of ecological events, like Hurricane Maria, on the macaques' physiology and social dynamics illustrate the complex, varying influences of social factors on aging, suggesting future research directions to deepen our understanding of aging in the context of social adversity.
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Aging is accompanied by a host of social and biological changes that correlate with behavior, cognitive health and susceptibility to neurodegenerative disease. To understand trajectories of brain aging in a primate, we generated a multiregion bulk (N = 527 samples) and single-nucleus (N = 24 samples) brain transcriptional dataset encompassing 15 brain regions and both sexes in a unique population of free-ranging, behaviorally phenotyped rhesus macaques. We demonstrate that age-related changes in the level and variance of gene expression occur in genes associated with neural functions and neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease.

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  • The study investigates the variations in cone ratios of color vision among catarrhine primates, focusing on rhesus macaques, which possess uniform trichromacy allowing them to see red, green, and blue wavelengths.
  • Researchers analyzed the genetic factors influencing the L:M and S cone ratios using RNA data, finding a generally consistent L:M ratio of about 1.03:1, with negligible genetic effects on this ratio.
  • Although female macaques exhibited slightly larger L:M ratios, S cone ratios showed significant genetic variance and heritability, providing insights into the genetic underpinnings of color vision variability in primates.
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Objective: Reconstructing the social lives of extinct primates is possible only through an understanding of the interplay between morphology, sexual selection pressures, and social behavior in extant species. Somatic sexual dimorphism is an important variable in primate evolution, in part because of the clear relationship between the strength and mechanisms of sexual selection and the degree of dimorphism. Here, we examine body size dimorphism across ontogeny in male and female rhesus macaques to assess whether it is primarily achieved via bimaturism as predicted by a polygynandrous mating system, faster male growth indicating polygyny, or both.

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  • The study examines how social relationships affect brain structure in free-ranging rhesus macaques, focusing on adults and their social connections.
  • Researchers found that having more social partners is associated with larger volumes in specific brain areas related to social decision-making and empathy.
  • The findings suggest that the development of these brain structures is influenced by the number of direct social connections rather than other social factors like status, emphasizing the link between social networks and biological success.
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  • Weather-related disasters, like Hurricane Maria, are becoming more common and can lead to severe mental, financial, and physical challenges for survivors.
  • Research on rhesus macaques showed that those exposed to the hurricane exhibited significant changes in immune cell gene expression, suggesting that such extreme events may accelerate biological aging.
  • Specifically, the gene expression of hurricane-exposed macaques indicated an average age increase of nearly 2 years compared to non-exposed individuals, highlighting a link between natural disasters and earlier onset of age-related health issues.
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Social integration and social status can substantially affect an individual's health and survival. One route through which this occurs is by altering immune function, which can be highly sensitive to changes in the social environment. However, we currently have limited understanding of how sociality influences markers of immunity in naturalistic populations where social dynamics can be fully realized.

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A recent focus in community ecology has been on how within-species variability shapes interspecific niche partitioning. Primate color vision offers a rich system in which to explore this issue. Most neotropical primates exhibit intraspecific variation in color vision due to allelic variation at the middle-to-long-wavelength opsin gene on the X chromosome.

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Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and droughts. Understanding resilience and vulnerability to these intense stressors and their aftermath could reveal adaptations to extreme environmental change. In 2017, Puerto Rico suffered its worst natural disaster, Hurricane Maria, which left 3,000 dead and provoked a mental health crisis.

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Background: An individual's microbiome changes over the course of its lifetime, especially during infancy, and again in old age. Confounding factors such as diet and healthcare make it difficult to disentangle the interactions between age, health, and microbial changes in humans. Animal models present an excellent opportunity to study age- and sex-linked variation in the microbiome, but captivity is known to influence animal microbial abundance and composition, while studies of free-ranging animals are typically limited to studies of the fecal microbiome using samples collected non-invasively.

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Ecological flexibility, extended lifespans, and large brains have long intrigued evolutionary biologists, and comparative genomics offers an efficient and effective tool for generating new insights into the evolution of such traits. Studies of capuchin monkeys are particularly well situated to shed light on the selective pressures and genetic underpinnings of local adaptation to diverse habitats, longevity, and brain development. Distributed widely across Central and South America, they are inventive and extractive foragers, known for their sensorimotor intelligence.

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