BOL: Related items

Luo Lab | Symbiosis Genomics & Evolution

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 03:30:30 -0500

We study the evolutionary genomics of marine invertebrates to understand their origins and diversity. Our lab combines high-throughput sequencing and single-cell transcriptomics to explore a wide range of non-model systems. We are particularly interested in how evolutionary novelty arises, with a focus on animal development and photosymbiosis.

Research Directions

Stony corals: evolution of novelty and photosymbiosis

Symbiotic acoels: cell type evolution and photosymbiosis

Animal genomes: structural evolution and gene regulation

https://sgel.biodiv.tw/home

When Genes Leave Clues: Reading the Evolutionary Footprints of Life

LEGE — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:47:07 -0500

Imagine walking through a forest and finding two sets of footprints that always appear, disappear, and reappear together. You might wonder whether the animals are connected. In genomics, genes leave similar footprints across evolution. When two genes repeatedly occur together—or disappear together—across different species, their shared evolutionary history can provide clues about their function.

This idea, known as phylogenetic profiling, is the foundation of Profylo (https://github.com/MartinSchoenstein/Profylo), an open-source Python toolkit developed for comparing evolutionary profiles and discovering co-evolving genes. Profylo brings together seven profile-comparison methods and four approaches for identifying co-evolving gene clusters, making it easier to explore hidden functional relationships within genomes.

The study demonstrates that even a simple matrix of gene presence and absence can reveal meaningful biological patterns. By following these evolutionary footprints, researchers can generate new hypotheses about unknown genes, pathways, and molecular interactions. In a world where genomes are being sequenced faster than ever, tools like Profylo offer an exciting way to let evolution itself become a guide to understanding gene function.

More at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-025-10280-6

Hejnol Group

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 16:02:53 -0600

The group studies a broad range of animal taxa using morphological and molecular tools to unravel the evolution and development of animal organ systems.

To understand the evolution of the biodiversity seen on planet earth is one of the major goals in biology. How animals explored new habitats from only being confined to the marine environment and the how the forms diversified is still one of the most tremendous questions to be answered.

http://www.sars.no/research/HejnolGrp.php

Gupta Lab

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 13:18:31 -0600

Work include (i) understanding the evolutionary relationships among different prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms; (ii) Understanding the cellular functions of these lineage-specific signature proteins as well as lineage-specific conserved inserts and deletions in important housekeeping proteins by genetic and biochemical studies; (iii) Development of novel diagnostic methods (PCR based and immunological) for identification of different groups of organisms based upon these signature proteins and conserved indels; (iv) The use of these lineage-specific probes with predicitive ability to identify/explore the presence of different groups of organisms in metagenomic sequences from various environments.

https://fhs.mcmaster.ca/gupta-lab/index.html

What is the hologenome concept of evolution?

Jit — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 12:23:54 -0600

All multicellular organisms are colonized by microbes, but a gestalt study of the composition of microbiome communities and their influence on the ecology and evolution of their macroscopic hosts has only recently become possible. One approach to thinking about the topic is to view the host–microbiome ecosystem as a “holobiont”.

Address of the bookmark: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6198262/

Useful link to teach evolution !

Abhi — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 18:29:30 -0500

Mimicry and other resources
Mimicry games:
Great Heliconius game:
http://heliconius.org/evolving_butterflies/
(See also 
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.0014)
Other one, a bit less friendly:
https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/Mimicry
Camouflage practical
https://alexis-catherine.github.io/publication/natural-selection-and-camouflage/
(NetLogo also has one: 
https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/BugHuntCamouflage)
Peppered moth game:
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/peppered-moths-game/play.html

General resources
The always popular Populus:
https://cbs.umn.edu/populus/overview
Drift & Gene Flow 
https://cartwrig.ht/apps/genie/
(Cock van Oosterhout has a great ppt to lead students through this)
See also https://cartwrig.ht/apps/redlynx/
https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ReplicatorMutatorDynamicsWithThreeStrategies/
NetLogo:
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/models/index.cgi
Population Genetics:
https://www.radford.edu/~rsheehy/Gen_flash/popgen/
Evolution in general
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
Mitochondrial Eve:
https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/gn/ex/mit-eve.html
Y chromosomes:
https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/gn/ex/y-chrom.html
A professional online package from Michael Kasumovic:
https://arludo.com/
a compilation of resources:
https://planted.botany.org/index.php?P=Home
Finally, Donald Forsdyke has some great on-line videos explaining
evolutionary principles (occasionally in a fake Scottish accent):
http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/videolectures.htm

Genome Origami

Jitendra Narayan — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 22:48:17 -0600

There are several interesting factoid about our genomes, one of them is their folding. If we stretched out the DNA in a single cell, which is only a few millionths of an inch wide, it would span more than six feet. In other word, the size of six feet DNA fold themself to fit in a few millionths of an inch wide space. These DNA folding is a dynamic process that changes over time (!!). Researchers around the world have been trying to understand how DNA folds itself up so efficiently, and a recent post on the NIH Director’s Blog highlights new research illustrating how the human genome folds inside the cell’s nucleus, as well as how DNA folding affects gene regulation. The research team created this delightful video that demonstrates the principles involved using origami art.

http://bioinformaticsonline.com/videolist/watch/19555/a-3d-map-of-the-human-genome

Researchers have been working to determine how cells regulate gene expression for nearly as long as we’ve known about DNA. How, for example, do nerve cells know to turn off only nerve cell genes and turn off bone cell genes? DNA folding loops are part of the answer. This research team, which published their findings in a paper in Cell http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2901497-4 , found that the number of loops is much lower than expected. There are only 10,000 loops instead of the predicted millions, and they form on/off switches in DNA.

More at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/ru-3mr121114.php

Reference http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2901497-4

Human Complete Genome

Shruti Paniwala — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 06:42:55 -0500

Telomere-to-telomere consortium

We have sequenced the CHM13hTERT human cell line with a number of technologies. Human genomic DNA was extracted from the cultured cell line. As the DNA is native, modified bases will be preserved. The data includes 30x PacBio HiFi, 120x coverage of Oxford Nanopore, 70x PacBio CLR, 50x 10X Genomics, as well as BioNano DLS and Arima Genomics HiC. Most raw data is available from this site, with the exception of the PacBio data which was generated by the University of Washington/PacBio and is available from NCBI SRA.

A UCSC browser is available for v2.0 (as well as legacy v1.0 and v1.1 versions). An interactive dotplot visualization of all genomic repeats is also available from resgen.io. Known issues identified in the assembly are tracked at CHM13 issues.

MORE at https://github.com/marbl/CHM13

Address of the bookmark: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj6987

Ley Lab !

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:21:10 -0500

Research Program aims to elucidate how gut microbial species relate to genotypic differences between human individuals, to identify bacterial and archaeal species that share an evolutionary history with humans, and to determine the molecular basis of long-term host-microbial relationships. We approach these aims through a combination of population-level observations and laboratory-based molecular-level investigations. We link inter-microbial and microbial-host interactions at the molecular scale to patterns at population and evolutionary scales.

More at https://leylab.com/

Carefully opt for human reference genome

biogeek — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 07:43:32 -0600

Heng Li posted several issues with the human reference genomes given in these resources and suggests the following compressed FASTA file to be used as hg38/GRCh38 human reference genome.

if you map reads to GRCh38 or hg38, use the following:

ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/all/GCA/000/001/405/GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38/seqs_for_alignment_pipelines.ucsc_ids/GCA_000001405.15_GRCh38_no_alt_analysis_set.fna.gz

There are several other versions of GRCh37/GRCh38. What’s wrong with them? Here are a collection of potential issues:

More at http://lh3.github.io/2017/11/13/which-human-reference-genome-to-use

Address of the bookmark: http://lh3.github.io/2017/11/13/which-human-reference-genome-to-use