Genomic Analysis of Experimental Evolution

Following cultures in real time in laboratory selection experiments is one way to study evolution in a controlled setting.  We have subjected a series of yeast cultures to hundreds of generations of nutrient-limited chemostat growth.  Evolved strains show a variety of changes at the phenotype and genotype levels.  These changes, as determined using a battery of microarray, include gene expression reprogramming, point mutations, transposon movement, genome rearrangement, and aneuploidy.  Population genomics revealed that only a subset of these mutations rise to high frequency.  We have recently begun to analyze these populations by next generation sequencing to better catalog the diversity present.  Our work to characterize the adaptive benefits of the discovered mutations is ongoing, and may lead to new insights in understanding how systems adapt.