Tom Hill (postdoc) recently published a paper characterizing the genome of the Drosophila innubila Nudivirus (DiNV). These viruses are large (155kb), double-stranded, circular DNA viruses that appear to infect several members of the Drosophila genus. Tom found preliminary evidence that a few key genes are evolving adaptively in the virus. You can read the paper in Infection, Genetics and Evolution by clicking here.
Lab lasertag and a trip to Pet World
Last week we celebrated a few milestones by petting small mammals and playing lasertag. Here are some pictures...
Sydney Alexander joins the lab for a rotation
Sydney at Pet World
We were pleased to welcome Sydney Alexander to the lab in August. She will be here through the end of October as her first rotation. Sydney is from Olathe, Kansas and attended Rockhurst University in Kansas City. Sydney's project focuses on interspecific divergence in immune defense in Drosophila. As an undergraduate, Sydney studied several things including the ability of wine to act as an antibiotic!
Tom's paper on baculovirus molecular evolution is out in the Journal of Virology
Tom Hill's paper entitled, "Baculovirus molecular evolution via gene turnover and recurrent positive selection of key genes" is out in the Journal of Virology. Here's a short blurb:
Most viral evolutionary studies focus on RNA viruses. While these viruses cause many human and animal diseases, it leaves us with a lesser understanding of how DNA viruses adapt to hosts and how the host responds to these pathogens. In this paper, we focus on the evolution of baculovirus, a group of insect-infecting DNA viruses, many of which have been used in biocontrol. We find that most the genome is under purifying selection, with only a few key genes evolving adaptively. Our results provide a glimpse into how DNA viruses differ from RNA viruses in their evolutionary dynamics and identifies genes key to DNA virus adaptation, improving our understanding of how this group of pathogens evolves.
Sarah Mullinax joins the lab and wins a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship
Sarah Mullinax decided to returned to the lab after completing her rotations. At about the same time, she was awarded a Self Graduate Fellowship which provides full support for her for four years. Self Fellows "demonstrate the promise to make significant contributions to their fields of study and society as a whole." We certainly agree that Sarah is highly qualified and we are thrilled to have her.
Jo Chapman joins the lab!
In January (on inauguration day), Jo Chapman joined the lab as postdoc to work on the evolution of gene duplication using Drosophila immune genes as a model. Jo is from New Zealand, and completed her PhD at Oxford and a postdoc at Linnaeus University in Sweden. As a PhD student, she worked on mating behavior in great tits, then moved to the mallard immune defense for her postdoc. Drosophila is a new venture for her, but birds are basically just warm-blooded flies.
Gene drive resistance paper in Genetics (and a cover!)
Philipp Messer, Andy Clark and I have a new paper out in Genetics about the evolution of resistance to gene drives (specifically CRISPR drives). Philipp should get most of the credit for this work. In the paper, we find that resistance is almost inevitable in a simple, single gRNA gene drive system. Our results build on several previous papers showing resistance was likely, by using the branching process machinery derived by Uecker and Hermisson (2011 - here) for the probability of fixation of alleles in changing environments. After the paper was accepted, I contacted Kent Smith, a friend who I met at the Lawrence Library Lego Club, about designing a cover. He took the idea and ran with it and now we have "The Attack of the 50 Foot Mosquito," quite a departure from the standard Genetics cover!
Kent Smith's cover art