Itai Yanai
Biological organisms rely on precise gene regulation. Indeed, the evolution of developmental processes can often be associated with specific changes in gene expression. However, differences in gene expression between species do not necessarily lead to adaptive changes in form and function; gene expression may evolve instead by non-adaptive processes. In this talk I'll describe an experiment comparing the embryonic transcriptomes of two genetically distant yet morphologically near-identical nematodes, Caenorhabditis elegans and C. briggsae. I'll show that the enormous differences detected between the transcriptomes follow the principles of essentiality, synteny, and promoter-evolution. The results indicate a rapid evolution of the transcriptome and the feasibility of discriminating between functional and non-functional gene expression programs by comparative transcriptomics.