Abstract
Research highlights for issue 2: recent applications in molecular evolution.
Highlights
The study of changing sequence composition of DNA, RNA and proteins over time has offered some of the most fundamental insights into the evolutionary process to date
Recent technological and bioinformatical improvements have continued to expand these insights, and have offered key applications such as the ability to model and predict pathogen evolution, monitor the effective population size of threatened species, and help understand what constitutes a healthy microbiome. Both led by Nora Besansky and published in Science, emphasize the power and challenges of comparative genomics when working to understand the evolution of disease vectors
The data suggest a mechanism for the observed functional diversity across the species, especially in those traits such as chemosensory ability that are associated with adaptation to host feeding and disease vectoring
Summary
The study of changing sequence composition of DNA, RNA and proteins over time has offered some of the most fundamental insights into the evolutionary process to date. Depending on which genomic segment the authors used to build phylogenetic trees, a remarkably different pattern emerged; trees based on autosomal sequences tended to group the three major vectors of malaria together, while those built using the X chromosome suggest early radiation of these three species and persistent introgression on the autosomes Together, these studies offer tantalizing hypotheses for the adaptive significance of among-species gene flow and genomic plasticity in allowing the Anopholes genus to act as vectors for a wide array of pathogens. A recent review of novel insights gained through transcriptomic analyses of natural populations by Mariano Alvarez and collaborators highlights the utility of this approach in testing how genotype translates to phenotype, and how this translation is influenced by environment-specific gene expression (Alvarez et al 2015) Such variation can have dramatic implications for the process of adaptation as well as our ability to predict the response of populations to rapid environmental changes such as those resulting from pathogens, pollutants, or climate change. The authors went a step further by adding a particular species of Christensenellaceae into an obese-associated microbiome and inoculating sterile mice with either the unaltered or altered microbial
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