Ana Escalante
Postdoctoral Associate
Ph.D, National University of Mexico
Contact Information
Phone: 612-624-2273
Fax: 612-624-6777
E-mail: escal004@umn.edu
Research Interests
I recently obtained my PhD degree at UNAM (National University of Mexico) working with microorganisms with an ecological perspective. Since the early stages of my PhD program I became interested in the complex nature of the emergence and maintenance of biodiversity and now, as a postdoctoral associate I am trying to gain insight into how this diversity surges and evolves in a naturally complex but tractable microbial system: the developmental regulation network of Myxococcus xanthus (see below). I will be working under the advisory of one of the pioneers in microbial evolution: Dr. Michael Travisano.
Statement
Organisms are living networks. Genes and gene products interact in myriad ways giving rise to complex structures and behaviors. Development is especially complex, since developmental changes cause cascades of change in the functioning of genetic networks generating organized phenotypic cellular diversity. The principles of development are the key to the generation of eventual treatments of genetic diseases, and substantial advances have been made in determining essential components in development. However, the basic principles remain elusive because 1) most studies of development use eukaryotic model systems which undergo substantial developmental change, but which are also relatively difficult to study because the complexity of the developmental network, crosstalk between components and the frequently faulted assumption of binary control, and 2) few studies have attempted to determine the evolutionary processes underlying developmental complexity which could increase the explanatory power of developmental studies.
The approach of the present project is to study a tractable developmental system, Myxococcus xanthus (prokaryote), that has an intricate genomic architecture and complex developmental phenotypes but by focusing on a subset of the entire genetic network we will make precise measurements of particular genetic constructs to overcome some of the previous difficulties and effectively evaluate the role and the contributions of epistatic interactions to actual phenotypes associated with complex networks, which is unknown to date. In respect to the evolutionary outcomes of mutational defects on developmental pathways we propose that assessing cheating of these defective mutants, we will determine the generality of cheating by this mechanism, and the potential for regulatory amelioration to result in developmental restoration.
The experimental strategy of the project will use developmental mutants (already constructed) of a particular subset of the M. xanthus genetic network and it will mainly be focused on the phenotypic effects to:
- Establish the interactions of the genes in the network, using different order mutants of the network and applying mathematical models to evaluate the type of epistatic interaction among genes.
- Determine the evolutionary outcomes and the potential for amelioration of developmental defects by an experimental evolution strategy. Here defective strains in isolation will be used to evaluate the potential of amelioration trough time (developmental restoration), and competing defective strains will be evaluated for the assessment of developmental cheating.
Selected Publications
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