Dr. Sæmundur Sveinsson nýdoktor og sérfræðingur í byggkynbótum við Landbúnaðarháskóla Íslands mun fjalla um doktorsverkefni sitt við grasafræðideild háskólans í Bresku Kólumbíu, Vancouver, Kanada; Þróun plöntuerfðamengja könnuð með næstu kynslóðar raðgreingartækni
Útdráttur: Þær gríðarlegu framfarir sem hafa orðið á DNA raðgreiningartækni á undanförnum fimm árum hafa gert vísindamönnum kleift að nálgast ýmsar líffræðilegar spurningar, sem fyrir einungis nokkrum árum sýndust óraunhæf rannsóknaverkefni. Í doktorsrannsókninni notaðist hann við raðgreiningartækni sem kennd er við Illumina, til þess að kanna ýmsa þætti varðandi þróun plöntuerfðamengja. Í fyrirlestrinum mun hann fjalla um fornfjöllitnun í línættkvíslinni (Linum), þróunarlegan uppruna endurtekinna raða í grænukornaerfðamengjum smára (Trifolium) og þróun umfangsmikilla enduraðanna í grænukornaerfðamengjum fimm náksyldra belgjurtaættkvísla (Trifolium, Pisum, Lathyrus, Lens og Vicia).
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Talk by Dr. Sæmundur Sveinsson, post-doc at the Agricultural University of Iceland, on october 10th, 12:30 to 13:10.
Title: Investigations into plant genome evolution using massive parallel sequencing
Abstract: In this talk Dr. Sveinsson will summarize most of the research that he did for his PhD thesis, which he submitted this summer to the Botany department at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
The advancements of various massively parallel sequencing (MPS) methods in the last five years have enabled researchers to tackle biological problems that until recently seemed intractable. One of the most widely used MPS methods comes from Illumina®, which combines accurate sequencing reads with high throughput. Data generated using Illumina sequencing is used in every chapter of this thesis to answer questions regarding genome evolution in various genera of flowering plants. His thesis was focused on three main themes of plant genome evolution: transposable elements, polyploidy and plastid genomes. In every chapter of his thesis he generated phylogenies from Illumina sequences, which he used to frame his research questions. In this talk he will present results from three chapters of his thesis. Firstly he will describe the discovery of a previously unknown paleopolyploidy event, which occurred within the flax genus (Linum). He analyzed Illumina sequenced transcriptomes of 11 flax species using several bioinformatic pipelines and concluded that the polyploidy event occurred about 23 – 42 million years ago. In the two remaining thesis chapters he looked at plastid genome evolution within several legume genera. Firstly he pinpointed the evolutionary origin of highly repetitive plastid genomes that were known to exist within the clover genus (Trifolium). He discovered that the repetitive plastomes are restricted to a single clade within Trifolium, which he estimated to be 12.4 – 13.8 million years old. Secondly he investigated the pattern of gene rearrangements in the IRLC clade of legumes. While plastomes are highly rearranged in this group, he characterized certain highly conserved gene blocks that have not been rearranged internally, and argue that these blocks may represent the fundamental gene regulatory organization of the plastid.