| 项目编号: | 1701414
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| 项目名称: | DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Detecting adaptive evolution of gene duplication in olfactory receptors |
| 作者: | Liliana Davalos Alvarez
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| 承担单位: | SUNY at Stony Brook
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| 批准年: | 2017
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| 开始日期: | 2017-05-01
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| 结束日期: | 2019-04-30
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| 资助金额: | 20340
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| 资助来源: | US-NSF
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| 项目类别: | Standard Grant
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| 国家: | US
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| 语种: | 英语
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| 特色学科分类: | Biological Sciences - Environmental Biology
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| 英文关键词: | gene
; project
; receptor
; gene duplication
; plant-visiting bat
; plant-visiting
; olfactory gene duplicate
; hyperdiverse gene
; mammalian olfactory gene family
; gene-tree/species tree reconciliation
; novel olfactory receptor
; olfactory receptor
; molecular evolution
; gene retention model
; research team
; genetic diversification
; evolutionary biology
; olfactory receptor retention rate
; previous research
; gene copy retention
; sensory evolution
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| 英文摘要: | This project will develop novel methods to characterize how genes diversify and will use these methods to detect adaptation in genetic diversification in bats. How genes diversify and evolve new functions is a little understood but important area in evolutionary biology. The sense of smell in mammals is the result of extreme diversification of genes that code for proteins that detect chemicals in the environment. Some mammals possess over 1,000 such proteins and others only a few hundred. Quantifying the role of natural selection in this diversification is difficult because current models fail to fully account for the processes involved: gene duplication and loss, mutation, as well as the number of gene copies present. This project will develop mathematical tools that incorporate this complexity and test hypotheses about sensory evolution in bat species with divergent specialized diets. The methods developed in the project will be applicable to many types of genes, including those involved in immune function and pathogen recognition. Through training from the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, the research team will design a short video for the public explaining the value understanding the evolution of smell. They will also implement a summer program for underrepresented Long Island, NJ high school students to learn about bat sensory systems.
Previous research has identified several species of plant-visiting bats that have evolved novel olfactory receptors via gene duplication. The match between dietary specialization and olfactory receptors provides an ideal system to test whether newly evolved receptors are related to a reliance on plant resources. A shift from an insectivorous ancestral bat population to a population that exploits fruit and pollen requires not only new morphological adaptations for consumption of these foods, but also fine-tuning of chemosensory systems to find these plant resources. The challenge of understanding the molecular evolution of the mammalian olfactory gene family has prevented a quantitative investigation of this pattern; this project will develop new methods to identify such adaptation. The focal hypothesis is that increased gene copy retention and diversification is connected to the rapid diversification of Neotropical plant-visiting bats. To test this hypothesis, this research involves three major objectives: (1) determine whether olfactory receptor retention rate is correlated with the increased speciation rate observed in plant-visiting bats, (2) empirically test whether olfactory gene duplicates are adaptive at the species level, and (3) evaluate the functional similarity and novelty of the receptors that have recently duplicated in plant-visiting bats. The project will make use of newly developed gene-tree/species tree reconciliation and gene retention models developed for recently diverged populations, as well as codon substitution models and protein reconstructions to detect how selection may be affecting the function of these hyperdiverse genes. |
| 资源类型: | 项目
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| 标识符: | http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/90277
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| Appears in Collections: | 全球变化的国际研究计划
科学计划与规划
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| Recommended Citation: | |
Liliana Davalos Alvarez. DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Detecting adaptive evolution of gene duplication in olfactory receptors. 2017-01-01.
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