Projects & Grants
| Unravelling the early evolution of the eukaryotic cell through exploring the genomes of the eukaryotic superphylum Discoba | |
|---|---|
| Project Id | 13-24983S |
| Main solver | prof. Mgr. Marek Eliáš, Ph.D. |
| Period | 2/2013 - 12/2016 |
| Provider | Standardní projekt GA ČR |
| State | finished |
| Anotation | Eukaryotes have evolved an enormous diversity of cellular organization and its molecular underpinnings. However, many fundamental aspects concerning the early evolutionary history eukaryotes and their cells still remain murky. Discoba is a recently defined superphylum embracing diverse unicellular eukaryotes (protists) with potentially primitive cellular and genomic features; some hypotheses even place the root of the eukaryote phylogeny into the Discoba. However, better understanding of the position and role of the Discoba in eukaryote evolution is hampered by a very limited and highly biased sampling of discoban genome sequences. We therefore propose a project to sequence, annotate, and analyse the genomes of several discobans and of a representative of the enigmatic eukaryotic lineage Malawimonadida exhibiting morphological affinities to Discoba. The genomic resources generated by the project will be explored in a comparative framework to illuminate the biology of the sequenced organisms and, particularly, to answer central questions of early eukaryote evolution and phylogeny. |
