川大—华大首届创新班同学向薛燕在本科学习期间参与解析北极熊基因组项目，研究结果于2014年5月8日作为封面文章在Cell杂志正式发表。向薛燕同学是四川老员工命科学公司2009级本科生，目前在华大基因国家基因库资源样本组-生物多样性基因组学项目组进行科研学习。通过比较北极熊和棕熊的基因组，发现北极熊是比以前认为的要更年轻的一个物种，研究还揭示了北极熊适应高脂饮食的脂肪酸代谢和心血管功能相关的一些基因。这些结果对于如何保护人类避免遭高脂饮食的不利影响或许能提供一些启发。

成果简介参见http://seq.cn/article-8096-1.html

原文链接：http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(14)00488-7

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On the cover: Polar bears are uniquely adapted to life in the High Arctic and have undergone dramatic physiological changes in response to Arctic climates and a lipid-enriched diet derived from their marine mammal prey. Through a population genomics approach, Liu et al. (pp. 785–794) find that the species is only c. 400,000 years old, and comparison of 90 complete genomes of polar bear and brown bear highlights candidate genes involved in fatty acid metabolism and loss of pigmentation in polar bears. Photo by Rune Dietz.