Submitted by Rachel B BREM on
In our lab we seek to understand, at the genetic level, how and why eukaryotes differ in the wild. There are many experimental tools available to answer these questions if one is focused on individuals that can mate and produce progeny, like varieties of tomato or breeds of dog. But plenty of traits of interest are actually only different between long-diverged species that can't breed. For example, many microbial pathogen species have a distant relative that is not pathogenic; many extremophile species have relatives that fail to handle environmental challenges. We'd love to know how these species-specific behaviors evolved. And to date, there have been very few tools we can use in the lab to find out. The goal of the current project is to break through this roadblock and identify the DNA sequence variants that govern trait differences between eukaryotic species. We have developed a brand new genomic method toward this end. It involves generating a viable, sterile hybrid between species and subjecting it to transposon mutagenesis. Phenotyping the mutants reveals loci at which variants between species influence the trait of interest. Currently the lab is focused on a proof of principle using one yeast species that can grow at high temperature, and another yeast species that can't. When we are done, we will have established a powerful high-resolution method for genetic dissection that can be applied in any organism across Eukarya (and we have other eukaryotic model systems we have already started pursuing for this purpose). As such the interest in our project in the scientific community is very high. We are enthusiastic about the possibility of recruiting SPUR students firmly committed to evolutionary biology to join us in bringing this work to light.
Undergraduates will be involved at every stage of this project: surveying phenotypes that distinguish yeast species; making massively parallel libraries of yeast mutants and sequencing them; analyzing high-throughput sequencing data; and constructing yeast transgenics to test hypotheses about particular genetic variants that underlie differences between species. Experience in microbial culturing/sterile technique is required. Experience in molecular biology (cloning, sequencing, PCR) and computational biology are a plus.
Experience in microbial culturing/sterile technique is required. Experience in molecular biology (cloning, sequencing, PCR) and computational biology are a plus.