Open this publication in new window or tab >>2013 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]
In this thesis work, I have used a comparative genomics approach to study a fungal model organism, Neurospora tetrasperma. My specific focus has been on genomic introgression, intron evolution, chromosomal structural rearrangements and codon usage. All of the studies are based on large-scale dataset generated by next-generation sequencing technology (NGS), combined with other techniques, such as Optical Mapping. In the introgression study, we detected large-scale introgression tracts in three N. tetrasperma lineages, and the introgression showed allele-specific and chromosomal-specific pattern. In the study of introns, we found indications of mRNA mediated intron loss and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) mediated intron gains in N. tetrasperma. We found that selection is involved in shaping intron gains and losses, and associated with intron position, intron phase and GC content. In the study of chromosomal structural rearrangements, we found a lineage specific chromosomal inversion pattern in N. tetrasperma, which indicates that inversions are unlikely to associate with the origin of the suppressed recombination and the mating system transition in N. tetrasperma. The result suggests inversions are the consequences, rather than the causes, of suppressed recombination on the mating-type chromosome of N. tetrasperma. In the final study, analyses of codon usage indicated that the region of suppressed recombination in N. tetrasperma is subjected to genomic degeneration, and selection efficiency has been much reduced in this region.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2013. p. 32
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214 ; 1075
Keywords
Neurospora tetrasperma, next-generation sequencing, introgression, intron, chromosomal inversion, codon usage
National Category
Evolutionary Biology Genetics
Research subject
Biology with specialization in Evolutionary Genetics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-207330 (URN)978-91-554-8753-9 (ISBN)
Public defence
2013-10-28, Zootissalen EBC, Norbyvägen 14, Uppsala, 09:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
2013-10-072013-09-122014-01-23