A genome informatics approach to discover the genetic determinants of the evolution of parasitism in nematode worms.

线虫种类普遍存在，是动植物的重要寄生虫。这种寄生性已经独立于自由生活的祖先物种进化了多次。支持寄生的生物机制编码在线虫的基因组中。我的研究计划的长期目标是了解基因组的哪些区域进化，以及这如何导致我们在今天的寄生线虫中观察到的行为和生化特征的起源和维持。使用基因组学，生物信息学和进化生物学方法的组合，我的研究计划检查基因复制和基因家族的生长在家畜动物的自由生活和寄生线虫的基因组中的进化。大型基因家族与生物体对其环境的反应有关。这些基因家族的变化通常与新环境的适应有关，这可能导致新物种的出现。20多个感兴趣的线虫物种的全序列基因组

Species of nematodes are ubiquitous, and significant parasites of animals and plants. This parasitism has evolved multiple times independently from free-living ancestral species. The biological mechanisms that support parasitism are encoded in the nematodes’ genomes. The long-term objectives of my research program are to understand which regions of the genome evolved, and how this leads to the origin and maintenance of the behaviour and biochemical traits that we observe in today’s parasitic nematodes. Using a combination of genomics, bioinformatics and evolutionary biology approaches, my research program examines the evolution of gene duplications and growth of gene families in the genomes of both free-living and parasitic nematodes of livestock animals. Large gene families are implicated in responding to an organism’s response to its environment. Changes in these gene families frequently correlate to the adaptation of a new environment, which can lead to the emergence of a new species. The fully sequenced genomes of over 20 nematode species of interest –