Genomic Analysis of The Klamath Gene Arrangement of Drosophila Persimilis
Open Access
Author:
Ellison, Amira
Millennium Scholars Program:
Biology (BIOL)
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisor:
Stephen Wade Schaeffer, Thesis Supervisor Benoit A Dayrat, Advisor
Keywords:
Drosophila Inversion Breakpoint Chromosome
Abstract:
Chromosome inversions are characterized as structural mutations that result from the reversal of gene order within a chromosomal segment through two breaks that reattach. Drosophila pseudoobscura and its sibling species D. persimilis have been a model system for the study of inversion polymorphisms in nature. These inversions have been consistently studied for decades, with a specific focus on how these inversions emerge in drosophila populations. Two hypotheses have been proposed for how inversions arise at the molecular level, the repeat-mediated and staggered cuts models. Previous work in D. pseudoobscura has supported the repeat-mediated mechanism, but it is unclear if similar mechanisms are generating rearrangements in D. persimilis. This study used long read sequencing technology to determine the genomic sequence of the breakpoints of the Klamath gene arrangement on the third chromosome in D. persimilis.
Through use of a genome assembly and breakpoint analysis, the proximal and distal breakpoints of the Klamath arrangement were identified and compared. The analysis of the breakpoint sequences of the Klamath arrangement supports the repeat-mediated hypothesis of inversion origin.
