Kurt Weir

eLife Assessment This important study investigates why the 13-lined ground squirrel (13LGS) retina is unusually rich in cone photoreceptors, the cells responsible for color and daylight vision. The authors perform deep transcriptomic and epigenetic comparisons between the mouse and the 13-lined ground squirrel (13LGS) to provide convincing evidence that identifies mechanisms that drive rod vs cone-rich retina development.

Abstract Torpor encompasses adaptations to diverse extreme environmental stressors such as hibernation, aestivation, brumation, and daily torpor. Here we introduce StrokeofGenus, an analytic pipeline that identifies distinct transcriptomic states and conservation of gene expression patterns across studies, tissues, and species. We use StrokeofGenus to study multiple and diverse forms of torpor from publicly available RNA-seq datasets that span eight species and two classes.