Wei Liu , Jia Xuan

Institute of Life Science, Jiyang College of Zhejiang A&F University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Molecular Ecology and Conservation, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 1   
Received: 21 Dec., 2024    Accepted: 27 Jan., 2025    Published: 10 Feb., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This study analyzed the adaptive traits and genetic basis of goats, focusing on the research progress on HGT and SV in goat environmental adaptation in recent years, analyzing the mechanism of their role in goat adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia, drought, heat and severe cold, as well as the synergistic effect of HGT and SV and their evolutionary significance. The study found that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) and genome structural variation (SV) are two important factors driving the adaptive evolution of goats. New functional genes have been introduced into goats, such as endogenous retrovirus integration to promote placental function, which may improve their ability to adapt to the environment. SV includes large fragment insertion, deletion, duplication, translocation and other variations in the genome, which can significantly change gene dosage and regulatory network, and is a key factor affecting goat phenotypic diversity and environmental adaptability. In addition, this study also looks forward to the use of omics technology and functional experiments to further study HGT and SV, and explores the application prospects of these new knowledge in goat genetic improvement and protection. A deeper understanding of horizontal gene transfer and structural variation will help reveal the genetic mechanisms of goat environmental adaptation, enrich evolutionary biology theory, and provide new ideas for livestock breeding and biodiversity conservation.

Goat; Horizontal gene transfer; Structural variation; Environmental adaptation; Genome evolution