Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Nov;335(9-10):814-819.
doi: 10.1002/jez.2504. Epub 2021 Jul 12.

Evolution of hemoglobin function in tropical air-breathing catfishes

Niels Christian Moth Andersen  1 , Angela Fago  1 , Christian Damsgaard  1   2
Affiliations

Evolution of hemoglobin function in tropical air-breathing catfishes

Niels Christian Moth Andersen et al. J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2021 Nov.

Abstract

The evolution of hemoglobin function in the transition from water- to air-breathing has been highly debated but remains unresolved. Here, we characterized the hemoglobin function in five closely related water- and air-breathing catfishes. We identify distinct directions of hemoglobin evolution in the clades that evolved air-breathing, and we show strong selection on hemoglobin function within the catfishes. These findings show that the lack of a general direction in hemoglobin function in the transition from water- to air-breathing may have resulted from divergent selection on hemoglobin function in independent clades of air-breathing fishes.

Keywords: Bohr effect; fish; gas-exchange; oxygen affinity.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. van Assendelft, O. W. (1970). Spectrophotometry of haemoglobin derivatives. Royal VanGorcum Ltd.
    1. Bayley, M., Damsgaard, C., Van Cong, N., Phuong, N. T., & Huong, D. T. T. (2020). Aquaculture of air-breathing fishes. In T. J. Benfey, A. P. Farell, & C. J. Brauner (Eds.), Fish physiology. Academic Press.
    1. Bayley, M., Damsgaard, C., Thomsen, M., Malte, H., & Wang, T. (2019). Learning to air-breathe: The first steps. Physiology, 34(1), 14-29.
    1. Berenbrink, M., Koldkjaer, P., Kepp, O., & Cossins, A. R. (2005). Evolution of oxygen secretion in fishes and the emergence of a complex physiological system. Science, 307(5716), 1752-1757.
    1. Damsgaard, C., Baliga, V. B., Bates, E., Burggren, W., McKenzie, D. J., Taylor, E., & Wright, P. A. (2020). Evolutionary and cardio-respiratory physiology of air-breathing and amphibious fishes. Acta Physiologica, 228(3), e13406.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources