Y variants tip the chromatin balance

Bernardo Lemos, Harvard University

November 8, 2010 @ 04:00 pm to 05:00 pm

22 Deike

A key challenge remains to learn how expression level, tissue-specificity, genome location and a multitude of other genomic attributes interact. Another complementary challenge is to learn how mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection shape variation in these attributes and, ultimately, patterns of regulatory variation between individuals, populations, and species. In this context, the role of heterochromatin and the functional consequences of variation in repetitive sequences have mostly been neglected. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that heterochromatin variation is abundant in natural populations from plants to humans, with consequences to both medically and ecologically relevant phenotypes. Here I will develop the notion that polymorphism in the lengths and kinds of repeated heterochromatic sequences contribute to global chromatin regulation and results in variable gene expression at many loci located in the autosomes and in the X-chromosome. I will discuss how a better understanding of this elusive part of our genome may shed light onproblems ranging from the missing heritability of complex traits to the molecular mechanisms underlying sexually antagonistic fitness variation. This talk is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology

Contact

Faye L. Maring
fmaring@la.psu.edu
814-867-0006