Category Archives: Uncategorized
José Carlos Montañés defends his PhD at Universitat Pompeu Fabra
José Carlos has defended his PhD titled “Discovery and evolutionary analysis of novel genes and translated ORFs” on the 11th of July. He has used different transcriptomics technologies, including Nanopore dRNA long reads and ribosome profiling, to identify novel isoforms … Continue reading
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Evolutionary trajectories of new duplicated and putative de novo genes
Completely new protein sequences in genomes can arise by gene duplication or de novo. How does the mechanism of origination influence the fate of the proteins? Do duplicated proteins tend to be retained at higher rates than de novo proteins? … Continue reading
Filed under de novo gene evolution, gene duplication, micropeptide, Uncategorized, yeast
The functions of human de novo originated proteins start to be revealed
Proteins restricted to a given species or lineage are mysterious. Many of them have emerged de novo from ancestral non-coding genomic regions rather than from pre-existing genes. A new study by Vakirlis et al. shows that a large portion of … Continue reading
Article in Ellipse by Will on his PhD journey in the lab
Will Blevins explains in an article in Ellipse his experience doing a PhD in the lab. The first challenge was culturing different yeast species, and isolating the RNA, in Lucas Carey’s lab. Then Will had to built a de novo … Continue reading
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Uncovering de novo gene birth in yeast using deep transcriptomics
We have investigated de novo gene evolution in baker’s yeast by comparing the transcriptomes of 11 different yeast species and using ribosome profiling data to identify putatively translated ORFs. The results have now been published in Nature Communications, you can … Continue reading
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The unexplored world of non-canonical peptides – a new Issue in Experimental Cell Research
A new issue in Experimental Cell Research is dedicated to different aspects of an extensive group of proteins known as micropeptides, many of which still remain hidden in genomes. These peptides are translated from open reading frames shorter than 100 … Continue reading
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Translation of neutrally evolving peptides a basis for de novo gene evolution – a short history
Our new paper “Translation of neutrally evolving peptides provides a basis for de novo gene evolution” has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution on March 19 2018. During the course of evolution, some genes are gained and others are … Continue reading
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Science at the Youth Mobile Festival 2018
The Youth Mobile (YoMo) festival is organized by GSMA Mobile World Congress to promote STEAM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) among young people. The different Centers of the PRBB could be found in the stand BioJuniors. Several members … Continue reading
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How dwarf lemurs survive the dry season in Madagascar
When one thinks about hibernation images of grizzly bears waking up after a long period of inaction come to mind. However, this is a more common physiological adaptation than usually thought, and many mammals hibernate, including diverse species of rats, … Continue reading
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Pervasive translation of lncRNAS
Ribosome profiling is a sequencing tecnique that detects regions in mRNAs that are being translated. Using this technique, researchers have observed mysterious patterns of translation in many transcripts believed to be non-coding (lncRNAs, or long non-coding RNAs). The patterns are … Continue reading
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