When: Tue 7/30, 1PM
Where: Kerckhoff 101.
Adrian Bruckner will be speaking on beetles, and also the interesting challenges around genome/transcriptome assembly and alignment for new organisms.
Single-cell biology as a tool to reveal the evolutionary assembly of a rove beetle chemical defense system
Adrian Brückner (Postdoc, Parker lab)
Across the Metazoa, the emergence of new modes of ecological interaction has been enabled by the repeated evolution of exocrine glands. Unique glands, bestowed with the capacity to synthesize and secrete specialized compounds, have evolved convergently and with great frequency in virtually all animal phyla. Glandular novelties arise even in single genera or species, in each case modifying how animals interact with their environment through trophic resource exploitation, pheromonal communication, chemical defense and parental care. We proposed to use a new model system – the rove beetle Dalotia coriaria – to understand how this paradigm – glands in animal – emerged from the combined action of constituent cells and how they emergent functionality evolved from the assembly of novel cell types on a molecular level.
For the seminar, I will i) shortly introduce you to our model system and the chemical ecology of predator-prey interactions, ii) share our biochemical and first single cell RNAseq results, iii) talk about the power of scRNAseq for evolutionary analyses and iv) discuss with you the challenges and caveats of scRNAseq in newly establish model organisms.
