Research overview: genetic basis of feline nutritional requirements

Cats have lost the ability to make several nutrients that other mammals synthesize, forcing strict dietary dependence on animal tissue. This overview surveys the genetic basis of these requirements, including reduced capacity to synthesize taurine, the inability to convert plant precursors into vitamin A or to make adequate arachidonic acid, and limited glucokinase activity for carbohydrate metabolism. It discusses how these losses are visible as inactivated or downregulated genes in feline genomes and how they reflect a long evolutionary commitment to carnivory in which a meat diet rendered such pathways dispensable. The survey links molecular evolution to feline physiology and practical nutrition.