28th Annual Student Research Conference
Identifying Genomic Changes at the Base of Placental Mammals
Michael C. Baraboo
Dr. Jon Beck, Faculty Mentor
A key component in understanding the process of evolution is identifying genetic changes that have occurred between species. One method of studying evolution is locating alterations in the genomes of species that share common ancestors, resulting in differing genetic characteristics. As part of a larger project seeking to infer the advent of placentation in mammals by locating gene duplication between species, several computational tools were created. This includes a system for acquiring the genomes of 30 placental mammals and several marsupials from the Ensembl database and comparing those genomes to locate homologous genes. We then used our synteny-based tool to identify orthologs among those homologs. When mapped onto the known mammalian phylogeny, the resulting data will pinpoint where new genes have appeared on every branch in that tree. From the tree we will infer if gene duplication on the branch leading to placental mammals show patterns consistent with evolutionary innovation.
Keywords: bioinformatics, genetics, databases, phylogeny
Topic(s):Computer Science
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 205-2
Location: MG 1096
Time: 11:15