Evolution of Gene Families

Zebrafish are members of the teleosts (ray-finned fishes) that constitute more than half of all extant vertebrate species. This remarkable radiation was likely helped by a whole genome duplication event that occurred at the base of the lineage. Functional redundancy of duplicated genes paves the way for interesting functional divergence, leading to experimental conditions where cell type specific genetic manipulations become feasible.

This favorable evolutionary scenario also has important ramification for the evolution of gene families. We use bioinformatic approaches to build phylogenies of selected gene families to achieve correct gene annotations and get insight into their evolution.  

People involved:

Dr. Matthias Gesemann

Dr. Marion Haug

Selected publications:

Haug MF, Gesemann M, Berger M, Neuhauss SCF. (2018). Phylogeny and distribution of protein kinase C variants in the zebrafish. Journal of Comparative Neurology in press

Glasauer SM1, Neuhauss SCF (2014). Whole-genome duplication in teleost fishes and its evolutionary consequences. Mol Genet Genomics. 289: 1045-1060

Haug MF, Gesemann M, Lazovic V, Neuhauss SCF (2015). Eumetazoan Cryptochrome Phylogeny and Evolution, Genome Biology & Evolution 7(2):601-19

von Niederhäusern V, Edda Kastenhuber E, Andreas Stäuble A, Gesemann G, Neuhauss SCF (2013). Phylogeny and expression of canonical transient receptor potential (TRPC) genes in developing zebrafish. Developmental Dynamics 242(12):1427-41

Kastenhuber E, Gesemann M, Mickoleit M, Neuhauss SCF (2013). Phylogenetic analysis and expression of zebrafish transient receptor potential melastatin family genes. Developmental Dynamics. 242(11):1236-49

Haug, M., Gesemann, M, Huang, YY, Neuhauss, SCF (2013). Phylogeny and Expression of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Genes in Zebrafish. J. Comp. Neurol.521:1533–1560, 2013.

Gesemann, M, Lesslauer, A, Maurer, CM, Schonthaler, HB, Neuhauss, SCF (2010). Phylogenetic analysis of the vertebrate Excitatory/Neutral Amino Acid Transporter (SLC1 / EAAT) family reveals lineage specific subfamilies. BMC Evolutionary Biology10:117.