Project description:Despite the astonishing diversity of life, evolutionary biologists have documented numerous instances where species converge in how they behave, look, and function. Given the importance of happenstance in evolution, it is often assumed that mechanisms driving independent evolution of similar phenotypes (convergence) are distinct; yet recent discoveries suggest that conserved genomic mechanisms can underlie convergent traits. Here, we generate forebrain transcriptomes from six sympatric Labridae wrasses that vary in mutualistic cleaning behavior and apply differential gene expression, co-expression, and phylogenetic comparative analyses to address three questions. First, do neurotranscriptomes vary among species with distinct cleaning behavior? Second, do species that have independently evolved facultative cleaning share neurotranscriptomic patterns? Third, are transcriptomic signatures linked to facultative cleaning also expressed in obligate cleaners? We identify shared neurotranscriptomic patterns in the repeated evolution of facultative cleaning, including 25 novel candidate genes. We then find that transcriptomic patterns associated with facultative cleaning are shared in our focal obligate cleaner species, with more genes than expected by chance with concordant expression patterns in obligate and facultative cleaners. Our results illuminate the neuromolecular basis of cooperative behavior and demonstrate the predictive potential of comparative transcriptomics to unravel the mechanistic underpinnings of the repeated evolution of complex phenotypes.
Project description:Despite the astonishing diversity of life, evolutionary biologists have documented numerous instances where species converge in how they behave, look, and function. Given the importance of happenstance in evolution, it is often assumed that mechanisms driving independent evolution of similar phenotypes (convergence) are distinct; yet recent discoveries suggest that conserved genomic mechanisms can underlie convergent traits. Here, we generate forebrain transcriptomes from six sympatric Labridae wrasses that vary in mutualistic cleaning behavior and apply differential gene expression, co-expression, and phylogenetic comparative analyses to address three questions. First, do neurotranscriptomes vary among species with distinct cleaning behavior? Second, do species that have independently evolved facultative cleaning share neurotranscriptomic patterns? Third, are transcriptomic signatures linked to facultative cleaning also expressed in obligate cleaners? We identify shared neurotranscriptomic patterns in the repeated evolution of facultative cleaning, including 25 novel candidate genes. We then find that transcriptomic patterns associated with facultative cleaning are shared in our focal obligate cleaner species, with more genes than expected by chance with concordant expression patterns in obligate and facultative cleaners. Our results illuminate the neuromolecular basis of cooperative behavior and demonstrate the predictive potential of comparative transcriptomics to unravel the mechanistic underpinnings of the repeated evolution of complex phenotypes.
Project description:To investigate dynamic molecular and cellular changes associated with skin tissue remodeling during the human hair cycle, we aimed to obtain single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from different hair cycle phases. We obtained scRNA-seq from randomly dissected human skin samples containing a single hair. Nineteen small skin pieces with a single hair were dissected from three female donors (single-hair samples). For comparison, we also collected three small skin pieces with no hairs from the same donors (non-hair samples). We enzymatically removed the interfollicular epidermis to focus our analysis on hair follicles and their surrounding dermis, which are the main areas of hair cycle-dependent tissue remodeling.