Publications by authors named "Irepan Salvador-Martinez"

The recent development of genetic lineage recorders, designed to register the genealogical history of cells using induced somatic mutations, has opened the possibility of reconstructing complete animal cell lineages. To reconstruct a cell lineage tree from a molecular recorder, it is crucial to use an appropriate reconstruction algorithm. Current approaches include algorithms specifically designed for cell lineage reconstruction and the repurposing of phylogenetic algorithms.

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Human immune cells are under constant evolutionary pressure, primarily through their role as first line of defence against pathogens. Most studies on immune adaptation are, however, based on protein-coding genes without considering their cellular context. Here, using data from the Human Cell Atlas, we infer the gene adaptation rate of the human immune landscape at cellular resolution.

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  • Scientists studied the complex cells in baby mice bones from when they were developing in the womb to when they were newborns.
  • They found that these baby bones have special groups of cells that help with bone growth, blood vessel formation, and creating blood cells.
  • The research aims to help other scientists in the future to better understand how these cell interactions work in baby bones.
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Pelagic larval stages are widespread across animals, yet it is unclear whether larvae were present in the last common ancestor of animals or whether they evolved multiple times due to common selective pressures. Many marine larvae are at least superficially similar; they are small, swim through the beating of bands of cilia, and sense the environment with an apical organ. To understand these similarities, we have generated single-cell atlases for marine larvae from two animal phyla and have compared their cell types.

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  • The emergence of CRISPR and molecular tools allows for the mapping of cell lineages via induced DNA mutations, with the potential to apply this method to more complex organisms in the future.
  • A DREAM challenge was organized to test the performance of lineage reconstruction algorithms using both real data from C. elegans and simulated data from Mus musculus, comparing 22 different approaches.
  • Some methods showed strong performance, but structural challenges in the lineage trees affected results; using smaller sub-trees to train algorithms was beneficial for improving the accuracy of larger tree reconstructions.
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  • Recent advancements in genetics and imaging technology are enabling researchers to reconstruct cell lineages, which track the history of cell divisions using live microscopy and molecular recorders.
  • A key research goal is to combine this lineage information with spatial data and cellular identities to create a more comprehensive understanding of cell relationships.
  • The web-based tool CeLaVi facilitates this integration by allowing users to interact with cell lineage data, visualize spatial distributions and cell characteristics in 3D, and annotate cells, enhancing the exploration of complex biological information.
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  • Eukaryotic organisms can have a 'hidden break' in their 28S ribosomal RNA that splits it into two parts, mostly seen in protostome animals like arthropods and molluscs.
  • A new computational method using RNA-Seq data effectively identifies this hidden break across various species, revealing that while it’s common in protostomes, it’s absent in some other taxa.
  • Interestingly, only a few non-animal eukaryotes show this break, where its location implies possible convergent evolution, indicating that RNA integrity metrics may be misleading in species with this break due to underestimation in RNA quality assessments.
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Previous studies of the evolution of genes expressed at different life-cycle stages of Drosophila melanogaster have not been able to disentangle adaptive from nonadaptive substitutions when using nonsynonymous sites. Here, we overcome this limitation by combining whole-genome polymorphism data from D. melanogaster and divergence data between D.

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  • Cell lineages are essential for understanding how cells develop and differentiate, but mapping them is complicated due to the large number of cells in organisms.
  • The study explores the use of CRISPR technology to create mutations as genetic markers for tracing cell lineages, assessing its effectiveness through computer simulations.
  • Findings highlight various factors, like cell division rates and mutation patterns, that affect the reliability of these CRISPR-based lineage reconstruction methods, indicating areas for improvement in future applications.
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We present a survey of selection across Drosophila melanogaster embryonic anatomy. Our approach integrates genomic variation, spatial gene expression patterns, and development with the aim of mapping adaptation over the entire embryo's anatomy. Our adaptation map is based on analyzing spatial gene expression information for 5,969 genes (from text-based annotations of in situ hybridization data directly from the BDGP database, Tomancak et al.

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The increase in complexity in an embryo over developmental time is perhaps one of the most intuitive processes of animal development. It is also intuitive that the embryo becomes progressively compartmentalized over time and space. In spite of this intuitiveness, there are no systematic attempts to quantify how this occurs.

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One of the most apparent phenomena in development is that it starts with something apparently simple and leads to something clearly complex with a specific and functional structure. At the level of gene expression it seems also clear that the embryo becomes progressively compartmentalized over time and space. However, there have not been any systematic attempts to quantify how this occurs.

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