Project description:Disease emergence occurs within the context of ecological communities, and disease driven declines in host populations can lead to complex direct and indirect ecological effects. Varying effects of a single disease among multiple susceptible hosts could benefit relatively resistant species. Beginning in 2013, an outbreak of sea star wasting disease (SSWD) led to population declines of many sea star species along the west coast of North America. Through field surveys and laboratory experiments, we investigated how and why the relative abundances of two co-occurring sea star species, Evasterias troschelii and Pisaster ochraceus, shifted during the ongoing wasting epidemic in Burrard Inlet, British Columbia, Canada. We hypothesized that Evasterias is competitively inferior to Pisaster but more resistant to SSWD. Thus, we predicted that SSWD-induced declines of Pisaster could mitigate the negative effects of SSWD on Evasterias, as the latter would experience competitive release. We document shifts in sea star abundance from 2008-2017: Pisaster abundance and mean size declined during the outbreak, while Evasterias abundance increased from relatively rare to numerically dominant within the intertidal. When exposed to symptomatic sea stars, Pisaster and Evasterias both showed signs of SSWD, but transmission and susceptibility was lower in Evasterias. Despite diet overlap documented in our field surveys, Evasterias was not outcompeted by Pisaster in laboratory trails conducted with the relatively small Pisaster available after the outbreak. Interference competition with larger Pisaster, or prey exploitation by Pisaster during the summer when Evasterias is primarily subtidal, may explain the rarity of Evasterias prior to Pisaster declines. Our results suggest that indirect effects mediated by competition can mask some of the direct effects of disease outbreaks, and the combination of direct and indirect effects will determine the restructuring of a community after disturbance.
Project description:Human engineered CRC organoids were equipped with the intestinal stem cell reporter STAR reflecting transcriptional activity of ASCL2. Bulk ATAC-sequencing was performed on STAR populations after 5 days and after 12 days of plating single STAR+ or STAR- cells.
Project description:Position-effect variegation (PEV) is the stochastic transcriptional silencing of a gene positioned adjacent to heterochromatin. white-mottled X-chromosomal inversions in Drosophila are classic PEV models that show variegation of the eye color gene white due to its relocation next to pericentric heterochromatin. To obtain insight into the mechanism of PEV, we constructed detailed binding maps of Heterochromatin Protein 1 (HP1), a major component of heterochromatin, on white-mottled chromosomes. We find that HP1 invades euchromatin across the inversion breakpoints over ~175kb and ~30kb, causing de novo association of HP1 with 20 genes. However, HP1 binding levels in these regions show substantial local variation; white is most strongly bound by HP1 and is one of only two genes that are substantially repressed by heterochromatin. HP1 binding to the invaded region is exceptionally sensitive to the dosage of the histone methyltransferase Su(var)3-9, indicating that the de novo formed heterochromatin is relatively unstable. Our molecular maps demonstrate that heterochromatin can invade a normally euchromatic region, yet the strength of HP1 binding and effects on gene expression are highly dependent on local context. Keywords: DamID, gene expression, genetic modification.