Die Entstehung evolutionärer Neuheiten: Untersuchung von genetischen und Umwelteffekten beim Wimpertierchen Paramecium

• Antragsteller: Dr. Francesco Catania
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Evolutionäre Zell- und Entwicklungsbiologie der Tiere ; Evolution, Anthropologie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2014 bis 2017
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 264304652

• Erstellungsjahr: 2018

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

The project enabled me to address questions related to the emergence of functional genetic novelties. Our findings further mechanistic understanding of splicing and shed light on the interactions between DNA splicing and the epigenetic machinery (in Paramecium) as well as RNA splicing and other co-transcriptional processes (in eukaryotes). We gained novel insights on the effects of environmental changes on DNA-level splicing efficiency. We were able to demonstrate that environmental changes can affect the emergence of DNA splicing variants, a finding which has significant trans-disciplinary implications. Additionally, these environmentally-induced variants may be evolutionary significant as they are potentially transmittable to subsequent sexual generations. Finally, we began to investigate adaptive responses to environmental stress as a function of the degree of sexual maturation, growth rate, age, and population density. The intriguing preliminary results that we obtained call for additional investigation.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

• (2015). Cis-acting signals modulate the efficiency of programmed DNA elimination in Paramecium tetraurelia. Nucleic Acids Research. 43(17): 8157-8168
  D. Ferro, G. Lepennetier, and F. Catania
  (Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkv843)
• (2015). On the path to genetic novelties: insights from programmed DNA elimination and RNA splicing, WIREs RNA. 6(5): 547-561
  F. Catania and J. Schmitz
  (Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1002/wrna.1293)
• (2017). Exploring the Impact of Cleavage and Polyadenylation Factors on Pre-mRNA Splicing Across Eukaryotes. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics. 7(7): 2107-2114
  G. Lepennetier, and F. Catania
  (Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.117.041483)
• (2017). From intronization to intron loss: How the interplay between mRNA-associated processes can shape the architecture and the expression of eukaryotic genes. Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 91: 136-144
  F. Catania
  (Siehe online unter https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocel.2017.06.017)