Michael Z. Ludwig, University of Chicago
Associate Professor
Chicago, Illinois
mludwig@uchicago.edu
Office:
(773) 702-8604
Expert In
Bio/Research
My research at the University of Chicago (in collaboration with Martin Kreitman) takes an evolutionary perspective to investigate the structure/function of eukaryotic cis-regulatory modules. Our approach has been to use transgenic analysis to functionally characterize evolved changes in the struc...
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Bio/Research
My research at the University of Chicago (in collaboration with Martin Kreitman) takes an evolutionary perspective to investigate the structure/function of eukaryotic cis-regulatory modules. Our approach has been to use transgenic analysis to functionally characterize evolved changes in the structure of a well-characterized enhancer controlling embryonic expression of even-skipped pair-rule stripe two in Drosophila. This work has lead us to a paradigm for understanding variation and evolution of eukaryotic regulatory sequences: stabilizing selection can maintain functional conservation of cis - regulatory elements for long periods of evolutionary time despite structural turnover of trans (transcription) -factor binding sites. At the same time, we’ve also documented an instance of rapid functional change in the enhancer function.
The evolution of this enhancer is non-clock-like, with important functional differences between closely related species and functional convergence between distantly related species. Functional divergence is attributable to differences in activation levels rather than spatiotemporal control of gene expression. Our findings have implications for understanding enhancer structure–function, mechanisms of speciation and computational identification of regulatory modules.
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The evolution of this enhancer is non-clock-like, with important functional differences between closely related species and functional convergence between distantly related species. Functional divergence is attributable to differences in activation levels rather than spatiotemporal control of gene expression. Our findings have implications for understanding enhancer structure–function, mechanisms of speciation and computational identification of regulatory modules.
Click to Shrink <<