Can responsivACe genomic strategies alleviate genomic conflicts?

Zurita-Gutiérrez, Y. H. (2015) Can responsivACe genomic strategies alleviate genomic conflicts? Master's Thesis / Essay, Biology.

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Abstract

Genomic imprinting has been predicted to evolve when paternity is uncertain as an attempt to increase paternal line’s fitness. Imprinting at one locus may destabilise other loci causing reciprocal imprinting at antagonistic loci. Using a model of a growth promoter and a growth inhibitor (such as Igf2-Igf2r) and assuming unresponsive genetic strategies, reciprocally imprinted antagonistic loci have been mathematically predicted. However it is well know that cellular sensing and physiological responses are crucial for an accurate development. Here I relax the assumption of unresponsive genes by introducing a maternal physiologically responsive strategy and study how genes’ expression level may evolve. This is, making the expression at the inhibitor locus as a function of the promoter’s total expression. Then, I restrict the analysis to linear functions to compare the effects of different slopes. While the evolution of the responsiveness strictly depends on asymmetric parental relationships (paternal uncertainty), I demonstrate that the maternal responsive strategy is able to reduce expression levels compared to unresponsive gene strategies. The strength of gene’s expression reduction is dependent on the slope of the function; steeper slopes achieve lower levels of expression. These responsive strategies suggest a reallocation of reproductive efforts, from current to future offspring. All results are also shown by a graphical analysis of a particular case. This work is a first attempt to formally describe the evolution of gene expression and the evolution of genomic interactions by mathematical implementations of physiological responsive strategies.

Item Type:	Thesis (Master's Thesis / Essay)
Degree programme:	Biology
Thesis type:	Master's Thesis / Essay
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2018 08:08
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2018 08:08
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/13348

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