Projects & Grants
| Non-standard genetic codes in protists and their evolution | |
|---|---|
| Project Id | 18-18699S |
| Main solver | prof. Mgr. Marek Eliáš, Ph.D. |
| Period | 1/2018 - 12/2020 |
| Provider | Katedra biologie a ekologie, Standardní projekt GA ČR |
| State | finished |
| Anotation | Most organisms share the same rules for reading the genetic information for protein synthesis, i.e. they exhibit the same genetic code, but a growing list of deviations is known. In eukaryotes these concern especially the genetic code in mitochondria and in nuclear genomes of some protist groups. Our team recently discovered several new genetic code variants with unexpected features in hitherto poorly studied or completely unknown protist organisms. This proposal builds on our already published and unpublished results and aims at closer investigation of the evolutionary origin and distribution of some of these new genetic codes, together with a more detailed characterization of other aspects of biology of the respective protist groups. In parallel, an unprecedented bioinformatics analysis of available sequence data will be performed to systematically search for new genetic code variants in eukaryotes. The results should substantially advance our knowledge of the eukaryote diversity at the molecular level and of general aspects of evolution of one of the basic cellular processes. |
