TAGC 2020
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The rapidly evolving Drosophila bag-of-marbes gene and its interactions with Wolbachia

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posted on 2020-04-20, 22:32 authored by Miwa Wenzel, Charles F. Aquadro
Work on the evolution of the Drosophila bag-of-marbles (bam) gene in the Aquadro lab. Bam plays a key role in early gametogenesis, making it surprising that it shows evidence of rapid and episodic evolution. Here we are exploring they hypothesis that Wolbachia, a germline endosymbiotic bacteria is contributing to bam's rapid evolution. We have discovered a novel interaction between bam and Wolbachia in males; we have created a pipeline to look for the possibility of historic Wolbachia and bam interactions, finding evidence of this in some D. mel individuals; and we have developed two models in which bam and Wolbachia may be interacting, with preliminary results suggesting a model of convergent molecular evolution.

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Program Number

1049B