A new study of human embryos has pinpointed the window in embryonic development during which the pelvis begins to look humanlike and identified hundreds of genes and regulatory RNA regions that drive this transformation.
The wide, basin-shaped human pelvis is a defining physical feature of our species. Without it, we couldn’t walk upright or give birth to big-brained babies. Now, a new study of human embryos has pinpointed the window in embryonic development during which the pelvis begins to look humanlike and identified hundreds of genes and regulatory RNA regions that drive this transformation. Many bear the hallmarks of strong natural selection for bipedalism, the authors conclude.
The pelvic girdle in primates consists of three major parts: blade-shaped bones, called ilia, that fan out to form the hips and, below those, two tube-shaped fused bones known as the pubis and ischium, which give shape to the birth canal. Great apes have relatively elongated ilia that lie flat against the back of the animals, as well as relatively narrow birth canals. Humans have shorter, rounded ilia that flare out and curve around.
Next, the researchers extracted RNA from different regions of the embryos’ pelvises to see which genes were active at different developmental stages. Then, they identified hundreds of human genes within specific pelvic sections whose activity seemed turned up or down during the first trimester. Of these, 261 genes were in the ilium.
“We think this is really pointing to the origins of bipedalism in our genome,” Capellini says of his team’s work.
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