Evolution of Regulatory Novelty in Stable Hybrids

Objetivo

Hybridization between closely related lineages frequently generates detrimental regulatory incompatibilities that reinforce reproductive isolation and contribute to speciation. However, it is unknown if hybridization can produce regulatory novelty that is selectively favoured and underpins evolutionary innovation. Here, I aim to elucidate how hybridization generates regulatory novelty -in the form of expression levels, expression patterns, and splicing variants that differ from those observed in the parents- and how regulatory novelty evolves in natural populations. I introduce Bacillus stick insects as a new system that enables comparing lab-generated early generation hybrids with independently derived wild stable hybrid lineages of two sorts: sexual hybrid populations that have been backcrossing during their evolution; and F1 hybrid lineages that have lost canonical sex thousands of years ago, and evolved under different ploidy levels.
Specifically, I will address four questions: 1) What are the factors underpinning regulatory novelty in early generation (F1+F2) hybrids? Is it mixing of regulatory elements from different parents (a)? Are epigenetic mechanisms and TEs involved (b)? Is there an effect of interparental divergence (c)? 2) How does gene regulation evolve in stable sexual hybrid zones: is regulatory novelty selectively beneficial and adaptive? 3) How does gene regulation evolve under a clonal subgenome inheritance? 4) Can an increase in subgenome ploidy in triploids generate dosage dependent regulatory novelty, and how does it evolve?
My team and I will study expression, splicing, chromatin accessibility, methylation, and TEs, in an allele specific manner, and using different tissues, developmental stages, sexes, and reciprocal crosses. Integration of the four Objectives will yield a comprehensive and detailed picture of how regulatory evolution in hybrids contributes to shaping life's diversity.

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