COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Estimating Species Trees from Multilocus DNA Sequence Data

哈佛大学和俄亥俄州立大学获得了一项奖励，以开发统计工具，该工具可用于使用由多个DNA序列组成的数据集构建物种的谱系树（系统发育）。分子数据，如DNA序列，经常用于研究物种的系统发育关系，但目前的模型分析这些数据是不充分的，并作出了一些不合理的假设。特别是，现有的方法倾向于将每个DNA序列的所谓“基因树”与“物种树”混为一谈，“基因树”可以从一个基因到下一个基因变化，而“物种树”通常是感兴趣的参数，但通常与基因树不同。该项目将开发将基因树和物种树作为单独实体来从DNA序列数据中估计的方法。系统发育树是生物学家研究一系列广泛现象的基本工具，包括疾病爆发的来源、癌症遗传学、人类进化和生物多样性。它们是人类基因组计划的重要产物，许多正在进行和完成的基因组计划都将产生由多个基因组成的数据集。这个项目将允许生物学家更有效地利用这些数据集，并开发更准确的系统发育树。

An award is made to Harvard University and Ohio State University to develop statistical tools that can be used to build genealogical trees (phylogenies) of species using data sets consisting of multiple DNA sequences. Molecular data, such as DNA sequences, are frequently used to study the phylogenetic relationships of species, but current models for analyzing such data are not adequate and make a number of unjustified assumptions. In particular, existing methods tend to conflate the so called "gene tree" of each DNA sequence, which can vary from one gene to the next, and the "species tree," which is usually the parameter of interest but can often differ from the gene tree(s). This project will develop methods that treat the gene tree and species tree as separate entities to be estimated from DNA sequence data.Phylogenetic trees are fundamental tools for biologists studying a wide array of phenomena, including the sources of disease outbreaks, cancer genetics, the evolution of humans and biodiversity. They are an important product of the human genome project and the many ongoing and completed genome projects will all produce data sets consisting of multiple genes. This project will allow biologists to make more efficient use of such data sets and to develop more accurate phylogenetic trees.