Postprandial sleep in short-sleeping Mexican cavefish.

Interaction between sleep and feeding behaviors are critical for adaptive fitness. Diverse species suppress sleep when food is scarce to increase the time spent foraging. Post-prandial sleep, an increase in sleep time following a feeding event, has been documented in vertebrate and invertebrate animals.

Oncogenic allelic interaction in highlights hybrid incompatibility.

Mixing genomes of different species by hybridization can disrupt species-specific genetic interactions that were adapted and fixed within each species population. Such disruption can predispose the hybrids to abnormalities and disease that decrease the overall fitness of the hybrids and is therefore named as hybrid incompatibility. Interspecies hybridization between southern platyfish and green swordtails leads to lethal melanocyte tumorigenesis.

Intra-Strain Genetic Variation of Platyfish () Strains Determines Tumorigenic Trajectory.

interspecies hybrids represent a valuable model system to study heritable tumorigenesis, and the only model system that exhibits both spontaneous and inducible tumors. Types of tumorigenesis depend on the specific pedigree of the parental species, , utilized to produce interspecies hybrids. Although the ancestors of the two currently used parental lines, Jp163 A and Jp163 B, were originally siblings produced by the same mother, backcross interspecies hybrid progeny between and Jp163 A develop spontaneous melanoma initiating at the dorsal fin due to segregation of an oncogene and a regulator encoded by the genome, while the backcross hybrid progeny with or and Jp163 B exhibit melanoma on the flanks of their bodies, especially after treatment with ultraviolet light.

Alternative strategies for development of a reference transcriptome for quantification of allele specific expression in organisms having sparse genomic resources.

In recent years RNA-Seq technology has been used not only to quantify differences in gene expression but also to understand the underlying mechanisms that lead to these differences. Nucleotide sequence variation arising through evolution may differentially affect the expression profiles of divergent species. RNA-Seq technology, combined with techniques to differentiate parental alleles and quantify their abundance, have recently become popular methods for allele specific gene expression (ASGE) analyses.

Identification of transcriptome SNPs between Xiphophorus lines and species for assessing allele specific gene expression within F₁ interspecies hybrids.

Variations in gene expression are essential for the evolution of novel phenotypes and for speciation. Studying allelic specific gene expression (ASGE) within interspecies hybrids provides a unique opportunity to reveal underlying mechanisms of genetic variation. Using Xiphophorus interspecies hybrid fishes and high-throughput next generation sequencing technology, we were able to assess variations between two closely related vertebrate species, Xiphophorus maculatus and Xiphophorus couchianus, and their F(1) interspecies hybrids.

Bird-like sex chromosomes of platypus imply recent origin of mammal sex chromosomes.

In therian mammals (placentals and marsupials), sex is determined by an XX female: XY male system, in which a gene (SRY) on the Y affects male determination. There is no equivalent in other amniotes, although some taxa (notably birds and snakes) have differentiated sex chromosomes. Birds have a ZW female: ZZ male system with no homology with mammal sex chromosomes, in which dosage of a Z-borne gene (possibly DMRT1) affects male determination.

Integrated and sequence-ordered BAC- and YAC-based physical maps for the rat genome.

As part of the effort to sequence the genome of Rattus norvegicus, we constructed a physical map comprised of fingerprinted bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones from the CHORI-230 BAC library. These BAC clones provide approximately 13-fold redundant coverage of the genome and have been assembled into 376 fingerprint contigs. A yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) map was also constructed and aligned with the BAC map via fingerprinted BAC and P1 artificial chromosome clones (PACs) sharing interspersed repetitive sequence markers with the YAC-based physical map.