Project description:Cichlids fishes exhibit extensive phenotypic diversification and speciation. In this study we integrate transcriptomic and proteomic signatures from two cichlids species, identify novel open reading frames (nORFs) and perform evolutionary analysis on these nORF regions. We embark comparative transrcriptomics and proteogenomic analysis of two metabolically active tissues, the testes and liver, of two cichlid species Oreochromis niloticus (Nile tilapia, ON) and Pundamilia nyererei (Makobe Island, PN). Our results suggest that the time scale of speciation of the two species can be better explained by the evolutionary divergence of these nORF genomic regions.
