Yak genome revealed

The yak is a large, long-haired bovine living in the Himalayan region, perfectly adapted to the extreme altitude and low temperatures. As many other organism living in extreme conditions, it's interesting to speculate which adaptative tricks it has evolved to survive in such an hostile environment. The paper from Qiu and collaborators provide us with the genome and all the answers!

From the paper:

"Genomic comparisons between yak and cattle identify an expansion in yak of gene families related to sensory perception and energy metabolism, as well as an enrichment of protein domains involved in sensing the extracellular environment and hypoxic stress. Positively selected and rapidly evolving genes in the yak lineage are also found to be significantly enriched in functional categories and pathways related to hypoxia and nutrition metabolism"