(Internal) Exploring changes in selection targets within a cultivated species

Advisor: Lewis Lukens, Plant Agriculture

Proposed co-advisor: TBD

Nonsynonymous and other coding sequence mutations are classically viewed as deleterious. Interestingly, we recently found that these mutations occurred at high frequency within a cultivated species. Cultivated species’ environments are far more uniform than those of their wild progenitors, so these results suggested that many coding sequences are under notably weaker purifying selection in cultivated environments. To explore this result futher, we have collected RNASeq data from 100s of wheat genotypes. One objective is to identify genomic regions between cultivars that are identical by descent and determine if selection has removed coding sequence mutations. A second objective is to investigate if regulatory mutations are under similar selective constraints as coding sequence mutations.

This is a one-semester project. The student is required to occasionally be on-site.

Knowledge/Skills

Bioinformatics coding skills