Fig. 5

Analysis of orthologous gene families. a Unique and shared gene families in the cheetah genome. b Dynamic evolution of ortholog gene clusters. The estimated numbers of ortholog groups in the common ancestral species are shown on the internal nodes. The numbers of orthologous groups that expanded or contracted in each lineage after speciation are shown on the corresponding branch, with + referring to expansion and − referring to contraction. The cheetah genome contained 17,863 orthologous gene families. Among these, 10,983 orthologous gene families were shared by all eight genomes and 12,114 by felids while 11 orthologous gene families were exclusively shared among Felidae species (cat, lion, tiger and cheetah) and another 112 were exclusively shared by the cheetah and cat (Additional file 3: Datasheet S2). There were 1335 predicted genes containing 2293 InterPro domains unique to cheetahs (Additional file 3: Datasheet S1). Both figures are based on the comparison of orthologous gene families among eight mammalian species