Monday, 10 February, 2020

Pascal Milesi,

SciLifeLab Fellow, Uppsala University, Sweden

Pascal Milesi, did his PhD (2012-2015) at the institute of evolution sciences of Montpellier, (University of Montpellier, France), where he studied the role of gene duplications in resistance to insecticide in Mosquitoes. Then, he joined Martin Lascoux’s group at EBC (IEG, plant ecology and evolution program, Uppsala University). There, he studied the genetic architecture of local adaptation in trees (mainly Norway spruce) and weeds (Capsella spp.). Since September, he has been an Associate Senior Lecturer in Plant ecology and Evolution program and a SciLifeLab fellow. His main project aims at investigating the role of structural variants in local adaptation of coniferous species.

Title of the talk: Genetic architecture of adaptation: when structural variation matters.

Understanding the genetic determinism of phenotypic traits is of paramount importance to identify and understand the mechanisms that drive their evolution and, for instance, predict their evolution under environmental changes. This is a challenging task because of their complex determinism; they are controlled by a multitude of genetic and non-genetic factors (e.g. epigenetic factors, environmental effects, etc.). The development of next generation sequencing has just begun to shed light on the complexity of their genetic architecture in terms of both number of loci and types of mutations involved in their control (from point to large scale mutations). I will illustrate this complexity and how to unravel it through three examples: i) the case of allo-ploidization and evolution of RNA expression in Capsella bursa-pastoris, ii) the case of polygenic adaptation of quantitative traits in Norway spruce and iii) the role of gene duplications in resistance to insecticides in mosquitoes.

Host: Anna Székely

Read more about Pascal Milesi´s research