Project Details
Projekt
Synteny-Based Identification of Genomic Innovations in Insects
Applicants
Dr. Steffen Lemke; Professor Dr. Peter Florian Stadler
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
Genome architecture in insects varies notably within and between taxonomic groups in terms of size, intron distribution, repeat content, and patterns of ancient gene linkage structures. The relationship between these patterns of genome evolution and phenotypic and behavioral diversity of insects is, however, not well understood. Secondarily increased or reduced genomes blur the link between organismal complexity, and non-adaptive scenarios can explain the emergence of genomic complexity through population-genetic environments. Establishing a timeline of genome changes across a gradient of evolutionary distances, linked with a functional analysis of identified novelties, is thus essential to understand how genome innovation is linked to phenotypic sophistication.Here we propose to systematically use syntenic conservation as a means of tracking orthology, local duplications, turn-over of repetitive elements, gains and losses of protein domains and coding capacity, and the emergence and decline of non-protein-coding genes. This synteny-based approach will go beyond the construction of reliable, unambiguous genomic alignments and thus overcome existing limits in classical methods of sequence-based gene phylogenies. This will, in particular, allow to unveil the evolutionary history of DNA elements that do not have 1-1 relationships across species, and to disentangle the evolutionary history also at phylogenetic distances that are too large to allow reliable sequence alignments.To establish a scalable approach that can address innovation across a gradient of evolutionary distances, we will take advantage of the broad taxon sampling in the insect order Diptera (true flies) and its particularly deep sampling of the family Drosophilidae. Fly evolution has been previously characterized by distinct episodes of rapid increase in taxonomic diversity, and coarse comparisons of fly genomes have suggested fly specificinnovations in patterning and signaling pathways. We will systematically catalogue the underlying signatures of innovation across 250+ fly genomes and use available expertise in comparative developmental biology to functionally address their impact on morphogenesis.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
