Project Details
Projekt
Synteny-Based Identification of Genomic Innovations in Insects
Subject Area
Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology
General Genetics and Functional Genome Biology
Developmental Biology
General Genetics and Functional Genome Biology
Developmental Biology
Term
since 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 502862570
Understanding how genome structure influences the evolution of gene regulation and phenotypic diversity remains a central challenge in biology. In insects, this question is particularly compelling: some taxa, such as Diptera, exhibit dramatic levels of genome rearrangement, from breaks of macrosynteny down to changes in fine-scale regulatory neighborhoods, while also displaying extraordinary phenotypic and ecological diversity. This raises the possibility that genome reshuffling may contribute to regulatory innovation. However, this relationship is complex: other speciose groups, such as Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, show rather stable genome architectures, suggesting that structural genome evolution may facilitate - but is not sufficient to explain - insect diversification. To investigate potential mechanistic links between genome rearrangement, regulatory innovation, and developmental diversity, several requirements must be met. These include: (i) access to a comparative model system with extensive genomic and developmental diversity; (ii) a well-defined developmental process shared across species but subject to evolutionary change; and (iii) analytical tools capable of aligning highly rearranged genomes at regulatory resolution. Over the course of the first funding period, we achieved two complementary breakthroughs that uniquely position us to address this question now. First, we developed an annotation-free synteny analysis tool based on non-genic anchors, which allows for the comparison of regulatory landscapes even in heavily reshuffled insect genomes. This overcomes a major technical barrier in insect comparative genomics. Second, we discovered that the first hours of embryonic development in flies are enriched for the activity of newly evolved, lineage-restricted genes, suggesting that early development acts as a ''sandbox'' for evolutionary innovation. Building on these foundations, we now propose to systematically investigate how genome rearrangements impact regulatory landscapes during early embryogenesis, and how this may contribute to the integration and functional deployment of new genes. Using a comparative framework across more than ten dipteran species with diverse genome structures, we aim to uncover the principles and limitations governing the link between genome structure and developmental evolvability.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
