Marie Kristin Lebherz

PhD Student

 

 
© Marie Lebherz

Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics
Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity
University of Münster
Hüfferstr. 1 (Room 20)
48149 Münster, Germany
Phone: +49 251/83-21634
m_lebh01@uni-muenster.de
Nationality: German De

 

Education

  • Since 2024:
    PhD studies in the Molecular Evolution and Bioinformatics Group, Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, University of Münster, Germany
  • 2020 - 2023:
    M.Sc. in Bioscience, University of Münster, Germany
    Thesis: Studying the emergence of de novo transcripts in seven populations of Drosophila melanogaster
  • 2017 - 2020:
    B.Sc. in Biosciences, University of Münster, Germany
    Thesis: Influence of the developmental environment on behavioural and physiological responses of Drosophila melanogaster-females to different levels of mating pressure

Stays Abroad

  • 2019
    ERASMUS exchange, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • 2016 - 2017:
    ERASMUS stay, Turku University, Turku, Finland

Supervisors

  • Prof Erich Bornberg-Bauer, Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, University of Münster, Germany
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Research interests

  • (De novo) Protein Evolution
  • Bioinformatics
  • Population Genomics

PhD project description

Emergence, loss and regulation of de novo genes

In recent years, a major shift has occurred in understanding how new proteins arise and gain function. Earlier research assumed that small, adaptive changes in duplicates of established genes led to the evolution of new proteins with new functions. However, recent research showed that new protein-encoding genes can arise ”de novo” from previously non-coding DNA. Although some mechanisms underlying de novo gene emergence are now understood, no coherent picture of how and how often novel protein coding genes arise, gain function and spread through a population is available.
The aim of this project is to characterise the short and long-term evolutionary dynamics of de novo gene emergence, loss and regulation. This will be done by sequencing genomes and transcriptomes of six Drosophila species spanning 3–40 million years of evolutionary divergence, including multiple individual genomes per species. This will allow us to precisely pin down the most recent events, such as the emergence of regulatory sequences that may have triggered the expression of an intronic or intergenic region. Including longer time scales will allow us to understand how often protein coding genes are created de novo and how often they are lost – most likely because they had not assumed a sufficiently important function to be retained by selection. Bioinformatic, population genetic and experimental functional genetic analyses will be performed to expand our understanding of how genomes change over time to give rise to new molecular and phenotypic traits.

Publications