Genome Evolution And Metabolic Characterization Of Lucinid Symbionts And Close Relatives

Virtually every animal on Earth evolved with and among trillions of microbes in the environment. Interactions with these microbes are mostly invisible to the human eye, thus, their wide-ranging effects were long overlooked in biology. The current ‘microbiome revolution’ is bringing widespread attention to the effects of microbes on almost every aspect of animal (including human) biology.

Aims: Expand our knowledge of the metabolic capabilities of Lucinid symbiont and compare the genome structure and functions to free-living relatives. This will allow for A) determining the evolutionary origin of Lucinid symbionts (Deep or shallow sea) and B) determining the variable metabolism of these symbiont and how this affects symbiont colonization.

Approach/Methods: Obtaining preserved samples from Museums, DNA extraction, Illumina sequencing, metagenomic binning, metabolic analysis, genomic comparison, phylogeny construction

Student: Jay Osvatic

Faculty: Jillian Petersen, David Berry, Alexander Loy, Matthias Horn, Thomas Rattei

Funding: WWTF VRG Molecular Host-Microbe Interactions

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