High-resolution genotype-phenotype map of speciation and adaptation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Understanding how mutations, random genetic drift and natural selection interact with ecological factors to drive evolution is one of the greatest challenges in biology. Achieving this goal requires that we understand how changes in genes lead to changes in phenotypes. This genotype-to-phenotype mapping involves drawing mechanistic links between phenotypic changes and their underlying molecular bases at intermediate levels (transcripts, proteins, metabolites, cellular networks) between the genotype (DNA) and fitness. The mechanisms by which genotypes are translated into phenotypes is itself, along with evolutionary forces such as mutation and natural selection, a major determinant of what solutions are possible and will be used during evolution. My objective is to examine how genomes and cellular networks change during evolution and how the architecture of cellular networks can itself influence the course of evolution in interaction with environmental changes. I will reach this objective by combining two approaches. The first one is prospective and will use experimental evolution. I will test hypotheses regarding the role of cellular network architecture in shaping adaptation and speciation and the role of adaptation and speciation in shaping cellular networks. My model system will be the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the most advanced model system in systems and cell biology. The second approach is retrospective. I will exploit a model system for adaptation and speciation that we recently discovered in the wild, the budding yeast S. paradoxus, which is the sister species of the model S. cerevisiae. S. paradoxus offers a unique opportunity to study adaptation and speciation in the wild in a species that is very closely related to a model for which cellular networks are extensively described. I will use this system to map the genetic determinants of adaptation and reproductive isolation in nature and map the genes involved onto the yeast cellular network. The ability to combine well described organisms at the molecular level with evolutionary studies will bring findings that have not been accessible to the general ecology and evolution community nor to the cell biology community. My research will i) illuminate our understanding of the emergence of complex biological systems and functions through evolution; ii) make possible predictions on how the evolution of biodiversity will proceed in response to global environmental changes and iii) allow forecasting and controlling evolution in animal and plant sciences, such as in the case of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and fungi. Finally, learning on how cellular network architecture influences evolution will enable the use of evolutionary principles in the context of biotechnologies to build tools and organisms that will serve Human's future and sustainable development.