Morey, C. (BMEB) – Innovations in Interdependence: Genomic and Functional Evolution in Invertebrates and Their Intracellular Symbionts
Intracellular symbionts are microorganisms, such as bacteria, that live within host cells. These associations are widespread throughout the invertebrate tree of life, and can perform a diversity of key metabolic, immune-response, or other functions that the host is dependent on for survival or reproduction. Intracellular symbioses allow both the host and the symbiont to occupy new ecological niches, and thus can have profound impacts on their evolution. Recent and rapid growth of available sequencing data provides new opportunities to investigate the genomic alterations underpinning functional and morphological changes during the evolution of these relationships, and how they reshape both host and symbiont biology.
Here, I propose investigating unique mechanisms of genomic innovation across three levels of host-symbiont evolution: symbiont genome evolution, host-symbiont regulatory co-evolution, and host genome evolution. In aim 1, I will investigate how mobile genetic elements drive episodic genome expansion and functional innovation in obligate chemosynthetic symbionts of deep-sea clams, further challenging the notion that reductive genome evolution is an inevitable or linear fate for host-restricted lineages. In aim 2, I will explore the potential for symbiont-derived small-RNA molecules to participate in cross-kingdom gene regulation of their hosts across a diversity of host-symbiont systems using publicly available genome and RNA-sequencing data. In aim 3, I will explore the convergent evolution of gut loss across independently derived marine bivalve lineages that depend nutritionally on chemosynthetic symbionts, identifying host genomic changes associated with the transition to a symbiotic lifestyle. Together, these aims leverage the expanding wealth of genomic data to illuminate how host-symbiont relationships reshape the genomes of both partners and generate novel adaptations across evolutionary time.
Event Host: Camryn Morey, Ph.D. Student, Biomolecular Engineering & Bioinformatics
Advisor: Shelbi Russell and Russ Corbett-Detig
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/92296748824?pwd=kabPBvby5xZbAHBbxBX6IIHNka8sLX.1
Passcode: 153631