Loki is so pleased

November is an important month for cats. The first preview of the genome of the domestic cat, Felis catus, has been published in the journal Genome Research.

Joan U. Pontius, James C. Mullikin, Douglas R. Smith, Agencourt Sequencing Team, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Sante Gnerre, Michele Clamp, Jean Chang, Robert Stephens, Beena Neelam, Natalia Volfovsky, Alejandro A. Schäffer, Richa Agarwala, Kristina Narfström, William J. Murphy, Urs Giger, Alfred L. Roca, Agostinho Antunes, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, Naoya Yuhki, Jill Pecon-Slattery, Warren E. Johnson, Guillaume Bourque, Glenn Tesler, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, and Stephen J. O’Brien. Initial sequence and comparative analysis of the cat genome. Genome Res. 2007 17: 1675-1689.

Loki, our 13-going-on-14 year-old red Abysinnian, is very pleased. Why? Because a distant relative – a four year-old Abbysinian cat named Cinnamon – was chosen as the ‘prototype’ cat for this project. A singular honor. Some news reports even had a photo of Cinnamon, an obviously alert and playful Aby, so characteristic of her breed. Loki was even more pleased, and somewhat surprised, at what she hopes might be an increasing intelligence in Homo sapiens.

When Loki examined the genetic maps on the Cat Genome Project website, she noted with delight that the investigators had compared the human genes with the cat genes, not the other way round as she would have expected. Such perception and respect is not often demonstrated by humans. Oh, she has her own humans trained well but she has never held out much hope for humans as a species.

Loki is so pleased. A very good month for cats indeed. P-u-r-r, p-u-r-r, p-u-r-r …

Photo: Walter W. Knapp