Identifying Genetic Causes of Specific Phenotypes by Whole-genome Sequencing Analysis

The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) makes it more practicable to extract genetic information from biological systems. Whole-genome sequencing analysis has become one of the major approaches to identify genetic causes of specific phenotypes, with the help of well-developed mapping and annotation tools. My project is aimed to identify causative mutations for some mutant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. One class of mutants belong to Ctf strains, with increased rate of chromosome loss in mitosis. Exploration of Ctf genes is helpful to understand cellular causes and consequences of chromosome instability (CIN), thereby elucidating mechanisms of some human diseases. Another class of mutants are strains that adapted for stronger growth in His- medium in a yeast two-hybrid assay (“papillation strains”). Papillation strains could harbor spontaneous genetic modifiers of protein-protein interactions (PPIs). By computational analysis of whole-genome sequencing data, I identified some candidate genes responsible for these two phenotypes, respectively, and validated some candidate Ctf genes experimentally.M.Sc.2017-11-26 00:00:0