MICROBIAL EVOLUTION--PATTERN OF GENETIC/PHENOTYPIC VARIATION IN CATOPHILIC YEAST

酵母菌既是重要的病原体，又是天然的、非致病的 社区。致病酵母菌的有效控制取决于我们的 将自然群落作为病原体的来源和作为 病原微生物种群内遗传变异的来源。一个 对病原体/自然人群了解的障碍 相互作用是已知的致病物质之间的巨大差距 酵母菌和大约自然种群的酵母。这笔赠款将会增加 我们对天然酵母群落进化史的了解 它既是天然酵母群落的模型，又包含 几种酵母，是人类的病原体。 为了做到这一点，我将使用遗传变异(在整个 基因组为随机扩增多态性DNA(随机扩增多态性DNA)或AFLP (匿名片段长度多态)变异或两者兼而有之)构建 亲缘和非亲缘嗜食菌株的系统发育。这个 系统发育将与生理模式相关联， 菌株的地理来源、寄主植物类型和杀手/敏感 表型，以追溯群落的演化史。我 能够确定社区是作为一个整体发展起来的，还是 代表了几个独立的社区，这些社区聚集在 在不同的时间和地点栖息。此外，我还将评估效果 特定于特定类型的遗传数据的错误来源 收集关于标准分支技术的准确的能力 揭示菌株之间的真正系统发育关系。我会这么做的 通过设计实验来评估数据和数据中的错误程度 不同水平和不同误差源影响的仿真模型 找到真正的支系的可能性。 参与该项目的学生将学习识别酵母菌； 遗传和系统发育分析；以及组织、分析和展示 他们的数据。该项目的跨学科方面将整合 在不同课程中呈现的概念，将拓宽学生的 生物学的视角，因此，鼓励他们拓宽他们的 在选择生物职业时的视角。

Yeasts are both important pathogens and members of natural, non-pathogenic communities. Effective control of pathogenic yeasts is dependent on our knowledge of the natural communities as a source of the pathogen and as a source of genetic variation within pathogenic microbial populations. An impediment to the understanding of pathogen/natural population interactions is the large gap between what is known about pathogenic yeasts and about natural populations of yeast. This grant will increase our knowledge of the evolutionary history of a natural yeast community which both serves a model for natural yeast communities and contains several species of yeast that are human pathogens. To accomplish this, I will use genetic variation (measured across the genome either as RAPD (randomly amplified polymorphic DNA) or AFLP (anonymous fragment length polymorphic) variation or both) to construct phylogenies of both related and unrelated cactophilic strains. The phylogenies will be correlated with patterns in physiological profile, geographic origins of the strains, host plant type, and killer/sensitive phenotype in order to trace the evolutionary history of the community. I will be able to determine if the community has evolved as a unit or represents several separate communities assembled within the cactophilic habitat at different times and places. In addition, I will assess effect of sources of error that are specific to the kinds of genetic data being collected on the ability of standard cladistic techniques to accurately uncover the true phylogenetic relationships among strains. I will do this through experiments designed to assess the level of error in the data and a simulation model of the effect of various levels and sources of error on the likelihood of finding the true cladogram. Students involved in the project will learn to identify yeasts; to do genetic and phylogenetic analyses; and to organize, analyze, and present their data. The interdisciplinary aspects of the project will integrate concepts presented in different courses and will widen the students' perspectives in biology and, consequently, encourage them to widen their perspectives when choosing a career in biology.