The chemokine CXCL16 and its receptor CXCR6 are implicated in various physiological and pathological processes in cooperative and/or stand-alone fashions. Despite the significance of rodent animal models in elucidating the function and clinical relevance of the chemokine and its receptor, the evolutionary characterization of these molecules remains deficient for this taxon to a certain extent. In this study, we implemented a comparison of synonymous and nonsynonymous variation rates in combination with the maximum likelihood (ML) analysis and Tajima's test to evaluate the interspecific and intraspecific evolutions of CXCL16 and CXCR6 in murine rodents. Our results indicate that adaptive selection has frequently contributed to genetic diversity of both CXCL16 and CXCR6 in the murine lineage that is asynchronous with a relative dependence between these genes. This signature is radically different from the lineage-specific and concordant adaptive diversity of the primate homologues of these genes, which was reported in a previous study. The diversity identified in the present study shed further light on molecular strategies against the challenges towards CXCL16 and CXCR6.

中文翻译：

---

鼠类啮齿动物趋化因子 CXCL16 及其受体 CXCR6 的进化分析。

趋化因子 CXCL16 及其受体 CXCR6 以合作和/或独立方式参与各种生理和病理过程。尽管啮齿动物模型在阐明趋化因子及其受体的功能和临床相关性方面具有重要意义，但这些分子的进化特征在一定程度上仍然缺乏该类群的缺陷。在这项研究中，我们结合最大似然 (ML) 分析和 Tajima 测试，对同义和非同义变异率进行了比较，以评估 CXCL16 和 CXCR6 在鼠啮齿动物中的种间和种内进化。我们的结果表明，适应性选择经常导致小鼠谱系中 CXCL16 和 CXCR6 的遗传多样性，这与这些基因之间的相对依赖性不同步。这种特征与这些基因的灵长类同源物的谱系特异性和一致适应性多样性完全不同，这在先前的研究中有所报道。本研究中确定的多样性进一步阐明了应对 CXCL16 和 CXCR6 挑战的分子策略。