Tree shrews are small, omnivorous animals and have been used as an alternative to NHPs in experimental studies of myopia, depression, psychosocial stress, and hepatitis virus infections. In addition, advantages such as small size, easy breeding, and rapid reproduction make the tree shrew an ideal subject for the study of human disease. The recently published genome of the Chinese tree shrew supports its close affinity to primates [65]. The chance of convergent similarity between tree shrews and primates is elevated by the statement that arboreal tree shrew species present nearer similarity to primates than do terrestrial tree shrew species.

Abstract: The tree shrews are non‐rodent, primate‐like, small animals. Despite taxonomic ambiguities and the apparent remoteness of a tupaiid-primate relationship, there are several reasons why tree shrews merit inclusion among studies of primate locomotion. The tree shrew (Tupaia belangeri) is a small mammal with a close relationship to primates and it has been proposed as an alternative experimental animal to primates … The family Tupaiidae ranges from India and southern China throughout most of southeastern Asia. A recent study published in Molecular Brain reports on the workings of excitatory synaptic transmission within the anterior cingulate cortex of the adult tree shrew. Schematic of neocortical architecture and a model of IP division in the mouse and Chinese tree shrew at midgestation.
tree shrews and primates was predominantly made by Le Gros Clark (1924), largely on the basis of brain anatomy. Figure 8. This review focuses on the use of the tree shrews in in vivo studies on viral hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), myopia, and psychosocial stress.

The tree shrew (Tupaia belangeri) is a promising laboratory animal that possesses a closer genetic relationship to primates than to rodents. In Chinese tree shrews and primates, abundant IPCs undergo successive proliferative division, which might be related to the expression of Sox2. His view was confirmed in Simpson’s classification of the mammals (Simpson, 1945). In the following years, several authors had doubts about this phylogenetic link and, as a re-sult, excluded tree shrews from primates. Open in new tab Download slide. Numerous tree shrew disease models have been generated in biological and medical studies in recent years. The evolutionary proximity of tree shrew's to primates provides hope for bridging the gap between disease modelling and clinical application. It shows that Homo sapiens is just one of dozens of primate species that share a common ancestor, probably a small, shrew-like creature that lived during the age of … There is increasing interest in using them to establish animal models for medical and biological research.