Project description:Evolutionary novelties entail the origin of morphologies that enable new functions. These features can arise through changes to gene function and regulation. One important noveltyis the fused rod at the end of the vertebral column in anurans, the urostyle. This feature is composed of a coccyx and an ossifying hypochord, and both structures ossify during metamorphosis. These experiments reveal that the coccyx and hypochord have two different molecular signatures. ATAC-seq data reveals potential regulatory regions that are observed in proximity to candidate genes identified from RNA-seq.
Project description:Evolutionary novelties entail the origin of morphologies that enable new functions. These features can arise through changes to gene function and regulation. One important noveltyis the fused rod at the end of the vertebral column in anurans, the urostyle. This feature is composed of a coccyx and an ossifying hypochord, and both structures ossify during metamorphosis. These experiments reveal that the coccyx and hypochord have two different molecular signatures. ATAC-seq data reveals potential regulatory regions that are observed in proximity to candidate genes identified from RNA-seq.
Project description:A major challenge in biology is to determine how evolutionarily novel characters originate, however, mechanistic explanations for the origin of novelties are almost completely unknown. The evolution of mammalianM-BM- pregnancy is an excellent system in which to study the origin of novelties because extant mammals preserve major stages in the transition from egg-laying to live-birth. To determine the molecular bases of this transition we characterized the pregnant/gravid uterine transcriptome from tetrapods, including species in the three major mammalian lineages, and used ancestral transcriptome reconstruction to trace the evolutionary history of uterine gene expression. We show that thousands of genes evolved endometrial expression during the origins of mammalian pregnancy, including numerous genes that mediate maternal-fetal communication and immunotolerance.Furthermore we show that thousands of regulatory elements active inM-BM- decidualized human endometrial stromal cellsM-BM- are derived from ancient mammalian transposable elements which provided binding sites for transcription factors that mediate decidualization and endometrial cell-type identity.M-BM- Our results indicate that one of the defining mammalian novelties evolved via domestication of ancient mammalian transposable elements into hormone-responsive regulatory elements throughout the genome. Examination of histone modification and DNAse hypersensitivity in decidualized dESC
Project description:5 day RNAi treatment to knockdown Enigma, CG9006, a Drosophila mitochondrial protein with homology to acyl-CoA dehydrogenases. Experiment Overall Design: Kc-167 cells, 5 day treatment with Enigma-specific RNAi or beta-lactamase control RNAi. Specifics:1.6X10^6 cells in 0.5mL of serum-free Sang's M3 media incubated for 1 hour with 20ug of dsRNA, subsequently equal volume of M3 media containing 10% serum was added. Cells harvested after 5 days. RNAi efficiency measured by immunoblot for Enigma.
