OEB Seminar Series: Heather Marlow

Heather Marlow
Assistant Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy
University of Chicago

Evolution of Animal Cell Types via Innovations in Gene Regulation

Abstract: While multicellular systems exist across the eukaryotes, animals are unique in their ability to generate, over the course of development, a myriad of functionally and morphologically distinct cell types.  Much work has focused on the homology of cell types between animal lineages, for example, whether specific neurons in vertebrates and protostomes are derived from a common ancestral cell type.  A different, and equally fascinating question focuses on the mechanisms which enable some lineages to generate thousands of cell types in tightly controlled spatial and temporal patterns across embryos while other lineages, with similar protein coding gene complements, generate only handfuls of cell types.  We find that changes to animal body plan complexity are tied to changes in the broader mechanisms of gene regulation that control when and where genes are expressed.  Work in our lab and others have identified major shifts in the mechanisms that regulate gene expression across animal lineages.  We use single-cell RNA-sequencing, epigenetics, and chromatin biology to identify these changes in gene regulation and to track their impacts on the generation of cell types and body plans.

Host: Professor Mansi Srivastava