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Calendar Name: seminars
Scheduled for: Thursday, November 8 2012, 11:00 - 12:30
Event text:    Dr Pierre Rouzé
	       
	       VIB, Dept. of Plant Systems Biology
	       Ghent University
	       
	       Gent
	       BELGIUM
Details:       “Of Mamiellales, the green yeasts, as models for Plant
	       Systems Biology, and of mobile introns”
	       
	       ABSTRACT
	       The interest of plant scientists for Mamiellales, comes
	       from the assumption that the ancestor to all other
	       Viridiplantae was part of it. Mamiellales are widespread
	       marine picoplankters and the complete genome sequence
	       has been obtained for six of these unicellular green
	       algae, including Ostreococcus (x3) , Micromonas (x2) and
	       Bathycocus, all of these annotated by our group in
	       Ghent. These genomes are small, from 13 to 22Mb,
	       harboring from 7.500 to 10.000 genes showing no
	       duplication in most cases. Added to easy cultivation and
	       replacement mutation, these features makes these algae,
	       especially the tiny Ostreococcus tauri, an interesting
	       model to study gene networks for the traits which are
	       conserved within the green lineage, bringing a frame on
	       which to branch the duplication complexity of higher
	       plants, in the same way yeasts are used towards animals.
	       The sequenced genomes of Mamiellales have a unique
	       heterogeneity, two chromosomes having specific features
	       compared the rest of the genome, which may be related to
	       sex and speciation. I will also present and discuss in
	       this talk the unexpected observation that the genomes of
	       the two Micromonas species which have been sequenced
	       harbor many invading introns which are copies of each
	       other, and are inserted at novel positions in the genes.
	       This was the first observation of this kind of event; it
	       illuminates the way intron can be gained, and shakes the
	       current assumption that introns have been acquired at
	       the birth of eukaryotes and have essentially been lost
	       since.

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