Presentation
Bdelloid rotifers are microscopic animals that display unusual features compared to other animals. One of these is that their genome contains surprising amounts of DNA acquired from other organisms, including bacteria, fungi and plants. Up to 10% of their expressed genes have a non-animal origin. We know little, however, about the dynamics and processes of the acquisition of foreign DNA, or whether bdelloids also take up DNA from other animals or from each other. One obstacle has been the lack of a robust phylogenetic tree. In this project, we will pool expertise and resources to reconstruct a robust phylogenomic tree of sequenced genomes belonging to most bdelloid genera. We will detect foreign DNA in our bdelloid genomes and map them across the genome and phylogenetic tree to understand when and where these uptake events occurred. The outputs will refine knowledge of bdelloid biology as a counter-example to understand why foreign DNA uptake is normally rare in other animal clades.
Promoters
- Karine Van Doninck, Research Unit in Molecular Biology and Evolution, ULB
- Timothy Giles Barraclough, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford