Paralog transcriptional differentiation in the D. melanogaster-specific gene family Sdic across populations and spermatogenesis stages.

How recently originated gene copies become stable genomic components remains uncertain as high sequence similarity of young duplicates precludes their functional characterization. The tandem multigene family Sdic is specific to Drosophila melanogaster and has been annotated across multiple reference-quality genome assemblies. Here we show the existence of a positive correlation between Sdic copy number and total expression, plus vast intrastrain differences in mRNA abundance among paralogs, using RNA-sequencing from testis of four strains with variable paralog composition.

Genomic Analyses Reveal Association of ASIP with a Recurrently evolving Adaptive Color Pattern in Frogs.

Traits shared among distantly related lineages are indicators of common evolutionary constraints, at the ecological, physiological, or molecular level. Here, we show that the vertebral stripe, a cryptic color pattern, has evolved hundreds of times in the evolutionary history of anurans (frogs and toads) and is favored in terrestrial habitats. Using a genome-wide association study, we demonstrate that variation near the Agouti signaling protein gene (ASIP) is responsible for the different vertebral stripe phenotypes in the African grass frog Ptychadena robeensis.

The Structural, Functional and Evolutionary Impact of Transposable Elements in Eukaryotes.

Transposable elements (TEs) are nearly ubiquitous in eukaryotes. The increase in genomic data, as well as progress in genome annotation and molecular biology techniques, have revealed the vast number of ways mobile elements have impacted the evolution of eukaryotes. In addition to being the main cause of difference in haploid genome size, TEs have affected the overall organization of genomes by accumulating preferentially in some genomic regions, by causing structural rearrangements or by modifying the recombination rate.

Disentangling the determinants of transposable elements dynamics in vertebrate genomes using empirical evidences and simulations.

The interactions between transposable elements (TEs) and their hosts constitute one of the most profound co-evolutionary processes found in nature. The population dynamics of TEs depends on factors specific to each TE families, such as the rate of transposition and insertional preference, the demographic history of the host and the genomic landscape. How these factors interact has yet to be investigated holistically.