Description du projet
Le rôle de l’épigénétique dans l’évolution
Selon la théorie de l’évolution de Charles Darwin, les organismes se développent sous l’effet de la sélection naturelle de petites variations héritées. Cela dit, des données scientifiques récentes mettent en lumière le rôle des changements épigénétiques dans la détermination des traits et du phénotype médical, ce qui indique que le phénotype n’est pas uniquement dicté par notre génome. Le projet MethylRIDE, financé par l’UE, vise à étudier l’influence des changements épigénétiques sur le processus d’adaptation biologique. Pour ce faire, les scientifiques concentreront leurs recherches sur les chevaux de l’ère glaciaire et auront recours à des techniques expérimentales et informatiques innovantes pour examiner d’anciennes molécules d’ADN conservées dans du matériel paléontologique. Les résultats lèveront le voile sur le rôle général de l’épigénétique en tant que force majeure de l’évolution.
Objectif
MethylRIDE: Charting DNA methylation reprogramming of Ice Age horses in the face of global climate change and extinction
Adaptation is one of the most essential processes in biology, by which species become fit to their environment. Following Charles Darwin, adaptation appears as the result of natural selection acting upon heritable variation. However, recent epigenetic discoveries have established the capacity of non-genetic changes in the regulatory layers of gene expression to shape our traits, including our medical phenotype. As such, our realized phenotype can no longer be considered as the sole product of our genome, but more as the combinatory by-product of our genome and epigenomes. The outcome of natural selection, which favors phenotypes associated to a higher reproductive success in a given environment, might, thus, be at least partly influenced by epigenetic changes. Yet, the possible participation of epigenetic changes in the process of biological adaptation is generally overlooked. MethylRIDE will take advantage of the preservation of ancient DNA molecules in paleontological material to track the changes in DNA methylation profiles of Ice Age horses, as they faced changing climatic conditions and selection pressures and, ultimately, became extinct. The unique combination of novel experimental and computational techniques developed will help assess, for the first time, the role of epigenetics in long-term adaptive strategies of large vertebrates in response to rapid climate change, and more generally the role of epigenetic change as a significant evolutionary force.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsDNA
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesevolutionary biology
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsepigenetics
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
75794 Paris
France