1

Organizing Committee
Atsushi Ogura, Chair, Ochanomizu University
Yoshihito Niimura, Tokyo Medical and Dental University
Kousuke Hanada, RIKEN Plant Science Center
Takashi Makino, Tohoku University
Takashi Gojobori, Honorary chair, National Institute of Genetics
SponsorNational Institute of Genetics
BGI
Affymetrix Japan
Contact
contact@e-genomics.org
Venue
National Center for Sciences Building, 2nd floor
Hitotsubashi 2-1-2, Chiyoda-ku, Zip101-0003, Tokyo, Japan2

Meeting Program
Monday, August 1, 2011
09:00-10:00 Registration
10:00- Opening remarks (Atsushi Ogura, Ochanomizu University)
10:05-12:30 Session 01 Session Chair: Takashi Makino (Tohoku University)
10:05-10:25 Dynamic evolution of the mechanisms of translation initiation
So Nakagawa
10:25-10:45 Evolution of transposable elements in Wolbachia bacterial endosymbionts
Richard Cordaux
10:45-11:05 Development of New Method for Constructing Ortholog Dataset Using Large
Amount of Gene Data
Tokumasa Horiike
11:05-11:20 Break
11:20-11:40 Evolutionary and functional analysis of large-effect mutations
Allan Moses
11:40-12:00 Gene clustering pattern, promoter architecture, and gene expression stability ineukaryotic genomes
Yong Woo
12:00-12:20 Measuring the evolutionary rate of protein-protein interaction
Jianzhi Zhang
12:20-12:40 Identification of dosage sensitive genes on the budding yeast genome
Hisao Moriya
14:00-16:30 Session 02 Session Chair: Kousuke Hanada (RIKEN)
14:00-14:20 Recurrent evolution of self-compatibility
Kentaro Shimizu
14:20-14:40 Cis-regulatory code of stress responsive transcription in Arabidopsis thaliana
Shin-han Shiu
14:40-15:00 Novel protein-coding genes in mammalian genomes
Aoife Mclysaght
15:00-15:20 When Time and Chance Happen to Worms: gene expression variation and theevolution of development
Scott Rifkin
15:00-15:35 Break
15:35-15:55 A Broad-ranging and Cost-efficient Inter-Species Microarray
Jun Sese
15:55-16:15 Navigating evolution-aware life science: our ancestral genome, 500 million
years ago
Shigehiro Kuraku
16:15-16:35 Evolutionarily inflexible debvelopmental programs?
~Transcriptome similarity supports vertebrate phylotypic hypothesis ~Naoki Irie
15:00-16:30
17:00-19:00

Poster setup
Poster Session3

Tuesday, August 2, 201109:30-12:00 Session 03 Session Chair: Yoshihito Niimura (Tokyo Medical and Dental University)
09:30-09:50 Higher evolutionary rate in genes with homopolymeric amino acid repeats thathave nondisordered structure
Jun Gojobori
09:50-10:10 Comparative transcriptome and genome analysis in a chimpanzee trio
Yasuhiro Go
10:10-10:30 Understanding human brain evolution through transcriptome sequencing
Philipp Khaitovich
10:30-10:50 Pleistocene Affairs
Johannes Krause
10:50-11:05 Break
11:05-11:25 Evidence of Positive Selection Acting on Novel Primate Specific
Transcripts Generated from Bidirectional Promoters
Valer Gotea
11:25-11:45 Effects of Natural Selection and Gene Conversion on the Evolution of Human
Glycophorins Coding for MNS Blood Polymorphisms in Malaria-Endemic
African Populations
Wen-Ya Ko
11:45-12:05 Evolutionary Genomic Medicine
Sudhir Kumar
12:00- 12:10 Closing remarks (Takashi Gojobori, National Institute of Genetics)
13:30- 15:30

Social Lunch

4

Abstracts of Oral Presentations

01
Dynamic evolution of the mechanisms of translation initiation
So Nakagawa
National Institute of Genetics
Translation initiation is one of the most fundamental processes in the regulation of gene expression for all
protein-coding genes in the genome of every species. In prokaryotes, it is generally believed that translation
is initiated by the interaction between the Shine-Dalgarno (SD) sequence in the 5´ untranslated region (UTR)of an mRNA and the anti-SD sequence in the 3´ end of a 16S ribosomal RNA. However, there are two
exceptional mechanisms, which do not require the SD sequence for translation initiation: one is mediated by aribosomal protein S1 (RPS1) and the other used leaderless mRNA that lacks its 5´ UTR. To understand theevolutionary changes of the mechanisms of translation initiation, we examined how universal the SD
sequence is as an effective initiator for translation among prokaryotes. We identified the SD sequence in the
genomes of 277 species (249 eubacteria and 28 archaebacteria). We also devised an SD index that is a
proportion of SD-containing genes in which the differences of GC contents are taken into account. We foundthat the SD indices varied among prokaryotic species, but were similar within each phylum. Although theanti-SD sequence is conserved among species, loss of the SD sequence seems to have occurred multiple times,
independently, in different phyla. For those phyla, RPS1-mediated or leaderless mRNA-used mechanisms oftranslation initiation are considered to be working to a greater extent. Moreover, we also found that somespecies, such as Cyanobacteria, shows the nucleotide biases between upstream and downstream of theinitiation codon, possibly suggesting the acquirement of new mechanisms of translation initiation. Ourfindings indicate that, despite the essentiality of translation initiation in gene expression, its mechanisms
have dynamically changed during evolution.
Keywords:

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02
Evolution of transposable elements in Wolbachia bacterial endosymbionts
Richard Cordaux
Université de Poitiers – CNRS
The streamlined genomes of ancient obligate endosymbionts generally lack mobile genetic elements, which
are otherwise relatively frequent in other prokaryotes. Yet, the genome of Wolbachia, one of the mostabundant bacterial endosymbionts on Earth, is littered with transposable elements. Such paradox raises thequestion as to why there are so many transposable elements in the genome of this ancient endosymbiont. To
address this question, we investigated the dynamics of various types of transposable elements (insertion
sequences and group II introns) in Wolbachia genomes, using an evolutionary perspective. Our results
indicate that several processes may explain the abundance of mobile DNA in Wolbachia, including recent
activity, along with recurrent invasions through horizontal transfers and gene conversion. Overall, our finescale analysis of Wolbachia transposable elements provides insight into the micro-evolutionary processes that
may explain the evolutionary interactions and dynamics of transposable elements in bacterial organisms.
Keyword:03
Development of New Method for Constructing Ortholog Dataset Using Large Amount ofGene Data
Tokumasa Horiike
Shizuoka University
Generally, ortholog databases such as COG (Cluster of Orthologous Groups) were utilized for prediction ofprotein functions. However they are not suitable for phylogenetic analysis because many paralogs andhorizontally transferred genes are included in the estimated ortholog dataset. Therefore, we developed a new
method to overcome the problems of constructing ortholog dataset that introduced the following ideas.
1) HGT Filter: Deletion of genes that are derived from horizontal gene transfer from initial sequence dataset.
2) Out-paralog filter: Deletion of out-paralogs from result data of BLAST using the similarity score.
Remaining out-paralogs are deleted in the following steps.
3) Tree split: This program split a tree into two to remove the out-paralogs from the candidates of ortholog
dataset with the information of phylogenetic tree’s topology, such as monophyletic or polyphyletic states in thegroup and species level.
4) Changing threshold: This program cut the candidate of ortholog group (including out-paralog) into two
ortholog groups by the difference of evolutionary distance among true ortholog members and that among outparalogs.
We compared the ortholog dataset made by this method and ortholog dataset without the key ideas of thismethod. The result suggest that this method has some tolerance for Out-paralogs and HGTs.
Keywords:

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04
Evolutionary and functional analysis of large-effect mutations
Alan Moses
University of Toronto
In the search for genetic variation that underlies phenotypic and functional diversity, amino acid differencesin proteins have usually been the focus. However, low-cost high-throughput sequencing technologies have led
to the identification of large amounts of genetic variation of different types, such as non-sense mutations,gene copy number variations, and insertions and deletions in both protein coding and non-coding DNA. We
have been exploring the functional consequences of these types of mutations using evolutionary genomics
methods. By quantifying the evolutionary constraint on the regions in which these mutations fall, we showthat as has been observed for SNPs, indels and stop codons affecting more conserved regions segregate atlower allele frequencies in the population, consistent with their effects being more deleterious. In addition, by
systematically phenotyping budding yeast, we have begun relating these mutations to phenotypicconsequences. Our analysis indicates that deleterious large-effect mutations segregating at low frequency
have a large functional and phenotypic impact on natural populations.
Keywords:

05
Gene clustering pattern, promoter architecture, and gene expression stability in eukaryotic
genomesYong Woo
The University of Chicago
A balance between gene expression stability and evolvability is essential for the long-term maintenance of aliving system. We studied whether the genetic and epigenetic properties of the promoter affect gene
expression variability. We hypothesized that upstream distance and orientation (head-to-head or head-to-tail)are important for the promoter architecture and gene expression variability. We found that in budding yeast
genes with a short upstream distance tend to have low gene expression variability, and their promoter isflanked by strongly positioned nucleosomes and tends to have low nucleosome occupancy. These observations
suggest that in vivo positioning of the flanking nucleosomes facilitates stable nucleosome depletion at the core
promoter region and enhances gene expression stability. Head-to-head genes have, on average, lower gene
expression variability, greater nucleosome depletion at the core promoter region, and more strongly positioned
nucleosomes that flank the core promoter than do head-to-tail genes. These observations hold for diverse
eukaryotes. In complex organisms such as mammals, only a small fraction of head-to-tail genes have retained
a short upstream distance, probably because the promoter may not be flanked by a strongly positioned
nucleosome on the upstream side.
Keywords:

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06
Measuring the evolutionary rate of protein-protein interaction
Jianzhi Zhang
University of Michigan
Despite our extensive knowledge about the rate of protein sequence evolution for thousands of genes inhundreds of species, the corresponding rate of protein function evolution is virtually unknown, especially at
the genomic scale. This lack of knowledge is primarily due to the huge diversity in protein function and theconsequent difficulty in gauging and comparing rates of protein function evolution. Nevertheless, mostproteins function through interacting with other proteins, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) can be tested
by standard assays. Thus, the rate of protein function evolution may be measured by the rate of PPI
evolution. Here we experimentally examine 87 potential interactions between Kluyveromyces waltii proteins
whose one-to-one orthologs in the related budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been reported tointeract. Combining our results with available data from other eukaryotes, we estimate that the evolutionaryrate of protein interaction is 0.26 per PPI per billion years, three orders of magnitude lower than the rate ofprotein sequence evolution measured by the number of amino acid substitutions per protein per year. The
extremely slow evolution of protein molecular function may account for the remarkable conservation of life atmolecular and cellular levels and allow studying the mechanistic basis of human disease in much simpler
organisms.
Keywords: protein interaction, yeast two hybrid, evolutionary rate, yeast, protein function

07
Identification of dosage sensitive genes on the budding yeast genome
Hisao Moriya
Okayama University
Expression level of each gene within a cell should be optimized so that the cellular system can perform its
function precisely and effectively. On the other hand, the expression level should have some permissible range
so that the cellular system has robustness against perturbations in gene expression. We have previously
developed a genetic method designated genetic Tug-Of-War (gTOW), by which permissible limit geneoverexpression of a target gene can be measured as the copy number (Moriya et al, 2006).
In this study, we have cloned >95% of genes in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome into theplasmid for gTOW, and measured the upper limit copy numbers of them. As a result, we have isolated about
100 genes with the upper limits <10 copies. Gene ontology analysis revealed that genes involved incytoskeletal organization and intracellular transport are significantly enriched. The reason for the very low
limits seemed to be generally explained by the dosage imbalance between partner genes, as we have found in
the cell cycle regulatory system (Kaizu et al., 2010). We suggest that these dosage balances might function tosecure genome integrity as a “genome skeleton”.
Keywords:

8

08
Recurrent evolution of self-compatibility
Kentaro Shimizu
University of ZurichEver since Darwin’s pioneering research, the evolutionary of self-fertilization (selfing) by the loss of selfincompatibility (SI) has been regarded as one of the most prevalent events in flowering plants. We havestudied two genera Arabidopsis and Cardamine, in which the transition occurred many times independently.
Evolutionary theory predicts that mutations disabling male function have the highest rate of increase infrequency from positive selection, because male mutations would increase through pollen as well as throughseeds. Despite many studies on the genetic basis of loss of SI in the predominantly selfing plant Arabidopsis
thaliana, it remained unknown whether selfing arose through mutations in the female specificity gene (SRK),
male specificity gene (SCR/SP11), or modifier genes and whether any of them rose to high frequency acrosslarge geographic regions. We revealed that a disruptive 213-bp inversion in the SCR gene (or its derivative
deletions) is found in 95% of European accessions, which contrasts with the genome-wide pattern ofpolymorphism in European A. thaliana. When the inversion was restored in transgenic plants, ancestral SI
was revived. These results suggest that a disruptive mutation in the male gene was advantageous inovercoming mate limitation, possibly associated with historical population expansion(s) from glacial refugia.
Keywords:09
Cis-regulatory code of stress responsive transcription in Arabidopsis thaliana
Shin-Han Shiu
Michigan State University
Environmental stress leads to dramatic transcriptional re-programming central to plant survival. At the cisregulation level, substantial knowledge has accumulated on how a few plant cis-regulatory elements (CREs)
function in stress regulation but many more CREs remain to be discovered. In addition, the plant stress cisregulatory code, i.e. how CREs work independently and/or in concert to specify stress responsive expression, ismostly unknown. Using multiple stress gene expression data, we identified a large number of putative CREs
(pCREs) in Arabidopsis thaliana with characteristics of authentic cis-elements. In addition, using thesepCREs, we uncovered cis-regulatory codes specifying how the presence and absence of these motifs and their
combinatorial relationships can be used to predict stress responsive expression. Expression prediction models
based on pCRE combinations perform significantly better than those based simply on pCRE presence andabsence. Furthermore, instead of a few master regulatory rules for each stress condition, many rules werediscovered, and each appears to control only a small subset of stress responsive genes. This study contributes
significantly to a better understanding of plant stress cis-regulatory logic and provides prioritized targets forfurther experimentation.
Keywords: Stress, Transcription, Regulation, Plan

9

10Novel protein-coding genes in mammalian genomes
Aoife McLysaght
Trinity College Dublin
François Jacob famously declared that the “probability that a functional protein would appear de novo byrandom association of amino acids is practically zero”. However, within the last few years convincing
examples of de novo origination of protein-coding genes have been uncovered by meticulous analysis of geneand genome sequences of flies, yeasts and mammals. Using extremely strict criteria, so as to avoid false
positives, we searched the for de novo genes within the Great Ape lineage leading to human, and also withinmurid genomes. We uncover new examples of de novo genes, several with a role in disease including cancers.
Keywords:

11
When Time and Chance Happen to Worms: gene expression variation and theevolution of development
Scott Rifkin
University of California, San Diego
The mapping between genotype and phenotype is a critical but troublesome component of evolutionary theory.
It can be extraordinarily complex, and the same mutation can have different phenotypic effects depending
upon genetic background or environmental conditions. However, even genetically identical organisms inhomogeneous environments vary, suggesting that randomness in developmental processes such as gene
expression may also generate diversity. This stochasticity threatens to further complicate our understandingof how allelic effects arise. I will discuss the consequences and relevance of gene expression variability for theoperation and evolution of genetic networks in multicellular organisms, using the intestinal specification
network in Caenorhabditis elegans and some of its close relatives as an example.
Keywords

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12
A Broad-ranging and Cost-efficient Inter-Species Microarray
Jun Sese
Dept. of Computer Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology
After the success of comparative genomic studies, comparative transcriptomics has been attracting
considerable attention. However, comparative transcriptomics in non-model organisms is hindered by theshortage of easy-to-use transcriptome tools, such as genome sequence and microarray, that are specifically
prepared for non-model organisms. This study facilitates observations of the comprehensive gene expression
observation of non-model organism.
In this study, we report a novel tool, the inter-species array, which can measure the gene expression levels ofmultiple species at once. An inter-species array is cost efficient, because it operates simply by changing theprobes on an Agilent customized commercial array, and uses conventional facilities and protocols. To design
the necessary probes, we investigated the effects of mutations on expression levels by using systematicallymutated probes.
To evaluate the strategy for designing probes, we generated an array for humans, rats and mice thatcomprised 6683 genes. The number of genes is larger than that of previous arrays. We measured theexpression of genes in human and rat astrocytes and in rat and mouse cortex. The experimental results
obtained using our array show a high correlation in gene expressions between orthologous genes.
Keywords:

13
Navigating evolution-aware life science: our ancestral genome, 500 million years ago
Shigehiro Kuraku
University of Konstanz
Complex life is achieved by elaborate networks composed of dozens of thousands of proteins encoded by ‘genes’
and non-protein-coding elements, each of which has a long or short history since its origin. One of the tasks ofevolutionary biology is to provide non-evolutionary research fields with time scales and explanations forcomplex biological systems. I have analyzed molecular phylogeny and embryonic expression patterns of avariety of protein-coding genes in non-model vertebrate species, such as jawless fishes. In fact, this avenue ofstudies on non-model vertebrates has shed light on fine-scale pictures of a number of ancient events that haveshaped the genomes of well-studied species, including us humans. First, the major event which introduced ahigh level of redundancy in our genome, known as ‘two-round whole genome duplications (2R-WGD)’, hasbeen revealed to date back to the era before the radiation of all extant vertebrates, including jawless fishes.
Second, it has been shown likely that the ancestral vertebrate genome contained additional protein-coding
genes (designated ‘cryptic pan-vertebrate genes’) that were successively lost in the course of evolution andhave not been recognized previously. Evolutionary genomics can now play an indispensable role in bridging
separate research fields focusing on different species, genes and biological processes.
Keywords: whole genome duplication, jawless fish, gene loss, life science, human genome

11

14
Evolutionarily inflexible debvelopmental programs? ~Transcriptome similarity supports
vertebrate phylotypic hypothesis ~Naoki Irie
RIKEN, CDB
One of the biggest questions in Evolutionary Developmental biology is that how animal developmental
systems accomplished the evolution of extensive morphological diversity, while meeting requirements ofcreating a viable organism every generation. A long-standing controversy concerning this question is thatwhich embryonic period (earliest or organogenesis period) has been conserved the most during evolution, andhas been imposed constraints on morphological evolution. Originally proposed by Ernst Haeckel, former
hypothsis insist that the earliest embryo is the stage of conservation, whilst the latter hypothesis (phylotypicstage hypothesis or the developmental hourglass model) emphasizes conservation of mid-embryonic ororganogenesis stages. In order to investigate which developmental stage is conserved the most amongvertebrate embryos, here we collected and identified the transcriptomes of early to late embryos of mouse,chicken, xenopus, and zebrafish, and further evaluated their transcriptome similarities as an index for
evolutionary distance. Our results indicated that so-called pharyngular stage is the stage of conservation,
while early and later stages are rather diverged. We will discuss how developmental hourglass model isrelated to the concept of phylotype, and vertebrate’s basic body plan.
Keywords: Evolution, Development, Transcriptome comparison, Vertebrates

15
Higher evolutionary rate in genes with homopolymeric amino acid repeats that havenondisordered structure
Jun Gojobori
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies
In the human genome, abount 650 genes are known to have repeats of single amino acids. This kind of repeat
are also called as homopolymeric amino acid repeats. By investigating the evolutionary conservativenessamong mammals, we classified the repeats into three categories: those whose length is conserved among
mammals (CM), those whose length differs among nonprimate mammals but is conserved among primates(CP), and those whose length differs among primates (VP). The 3D structure of these amino acid repeats is
considered to be intrinsically disordered. As expected, many repeats are predicted to have disorderedstructure. On the other hand, 13% and 25% of the repeats for categories CM and VP are predicted to havenondisordered structure, respectively. The genes with nondisordered repeats showed a higher Ka/Ks ratio
than the genes with disordered repeats. These results indicate that amino acid substitution rates have been
elevated in the genes with nondisordered repeats.
Keywords: Homopolymeric amino acid repeats, protein structure, intrinsically disordered region,
mammal, primate

12

16
Comparative transcriptome and genome analysis in a chimpanzee trio
Yasuhiro Go
Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
Transcriptome can be defined as the total set of transcripts in a given cell or a population of cells (e.g., tissue).
Using RNA-seq technology, which sequences the transcripts with massively parallel DNA sequencing, we cansee the dynamics of transcripts among different type of cells (e.g., cancer cells vs. normal cells) or different
organisms (e.g., human brain vs. chimpanzee brain). Here we used this RNA-seq for transcriptome analysis ofleukocyte in a chimpanzee trio (father-mother-child). We obtained 3~5 Gb from each individual by IlluminaGAII sequencer and found about a hundred thousand SNPs against a reference chimpanzee genome sequence.
Moreover we found ten thousands and several thousands of transcribed SNPs (tSNPs) and several thousandsof transcribed INDELs (insertions and deletions) on average among trio, and revealed that tSNPs are moreenriched on 3’-UTR than CDS or 5’-UTR, suggesting a major role of tSNPs as a gene expression regulator.
Moreover, NGS enables us to quantify a level of gene expression in an allele-specific way, and it is thus
possible to estimate relative contribution of cis and trans mutations for gene expression divergence, and more
importantly, to detect candidate imprinting genes straightforwardly. At present, we have thousands of suchtSNPs in the data. We recently obtained whole genome sequencing data from a same trio, covering more than
30X of the chimpanzee genome. Integrating chimpanzee transcriptome and genome data as well as
conjunction with human trio data could help us to get a comprehensive picture for evolutionary dynamics oftranscriptome and genome both intra- (trio) and inter- (humans and chimpanzees) species levels.
Keywords: chimpanzee, comparative transcriptome, comparative genome, regulation of gene expression

17
Understanding human brain evolution through transcriptome sequencing
Philipp Khaitovich
PICB
Transcription is the first step connecting genetic information with an organism’s phenotype. While gene
expression changes in the human brain has been characterized extensively, our knowledge about changes intranscript structure, as well as mechanisms of transcriptional regulation is limited.
Here, we use high-throughput transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) to characterize the human braintranscriptome at different life stages: from newborns to old age. We investigate changes in transcript splicing,as well as use of alternative transcription start and termination sites at different age. Further, we link thesechanges to splicing regulation. Finally, we compare human splicing patterns to those in chimpanzees andmacaques and identify human-specific spicing changes.
Keywords: human, chimpanzee, brain, RNA-seq, splcing"13

18
Pleistocene Affairs
Johannes Krause
Tübingen University, Germany
A genetic comparison between modern humans and their extinct relatives could both address the relationshipbetween us and them and offer the possibility to identify genetic changes that happened specifically on thehuman lineage. Using a combination of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and multiple
improvements in ancient DNA retrieval, library construction and targeted library enrichments, theNeandertal Genome Analysis Consortium has recently completed a first version of the Neandertal genome aswell as a genome sequence of an extinct hominin discovered in the Altai mountains in southern Siberia named
Denisovan. The analysis of both the Neandertal and Denisovan genome revealed evidence of geneflow
between certain modern human populations and both extinct hominins. From the analysis of the data wewere furthermore able to draw conclusion about diversity within and among the extinct hominins and by
scanning the human genome for regions of positive selection using the Neandertal and Denisovan genome, we
identified several strong candidate genes involved in diet, cognitive traits, and skeletal morphology that werepotentially selected on the modern human lineage.
Keywords: Ancient DNA, Hominin, Neandertal, Denisovan, Next Generation Sequencing

19
Evidence of Positive Selection Acting on Novel Primate Specific Transcripts Generated from
Bidirectional Promoters
Valer Gotea
National Human Genome Research Institute
The evolution of novel characters implies the emergence of genes with novel functions, which was mostly
studied in genes that were subjected to various forms of duplication. Here I focus on a different class of genesthat are capable of providing new functions, namely lineage-specific novel transcripts (NT) that are not theresult of gene duplication. More specifically, I analyze a collection of 1,162 non-coding, non-conserved humanspecific NTs that flank conserved genes in a head-to head fashion. While their origin from bidirectional
promoters is supported by significant correlation of expression to that of their protein-coding neighbors, NTsappear to be randomly distributed across the genome. Additionally, their novel character is supported by theirhigh transposable element (TE) content and the splice sites usage pattern. Many of these transcripts can beviewed as transcriptional noise, but evidence of functional importance, in the form of positive selection, can befound in few transcripts. A novel test that takes advantage of the high TE content of NTs highlights less than
5% of NTs as having significantly elevated rates of human-specific substitution rates (after correction for local
mutation bias). In a few specific cases, the mutation pattern can be linked (and be validated experimentally)to the increased strength of neighboring splice sites that resulted in the recruitment of novel exons, thus
supporting the gain of function hypothesis. Based on these findings, I will outline a lineage-independent
mechanism that is an important evolutionary force by continuously generating genuinely novel transcripts.

1420
Effects of Natural Selection and Gene Conversion on the Evolution of Human Glycophorins
Coding for MNS Blood Polymorphisms in Malaria-Endemic African Populations
Wen-Ya Ko
Center for Evolutionary Medicine & Informatics @ Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University,
USA
Malaria has been a very strong selection pressure in recent human evolution, particularly in Africa. Of theone million deaths per year due to malaria, more than 90% are in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with highlevels of genetic variation and population substructure. However, there have been few studies of nucleotide
variation at genetic loci that are relevant to malaria susceptibility across geographically and geneticallydiverse ethnic groups in Africa. Invasion of erythrocytes by Plasmodium falciparum parasites is central to thepathology of malaria. Glycophorin A (GYPA) and B (GYPB), which determine MN and Ss blood types, are two
major receptors that are expressed on erythrocyte surfaces and interact with parasite ligands. We analyzed
nucleotide diversity of the glycophorin gene family in 15 African populations with different levels of malaria
exposure. High levels of nucleotide diversity and gene conversion were found at these genes. We observed
divergent patterns of genetic variation between these duplicated genes and between different extracellulardomains of GYPA. Specifically, we identified fixed adaptive changes at exons 3–4 of GYPA. By contrast, weobserved an allele frequency spectrum skewed toward a significant excess of intermediate-frequency alleles at
GYPA exon 2 in many populations; the degree of spectrum distortion is correlated with malaria exposure,possibly because of the joint effects of gene conversion and balancing selection. We also identified a haplotypecausing three amino acid changes in the extracellular domain of glycophorin B. This haplotype might have
evolved adaptively in five populations with high exposure to malaria.

21
Evolutionary Genomic Medicine
Sudhir Kumar
Center for Evolutionary Medicine & Informatics @ Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University,
USA
Modern technologies have made the sequencing of personal genomes routine and revealed millions of variants
per genome. What do these variants foretell about an individual’s predisposition to diseases? The
experimental technologies and resources required to carry out such evaluations are not yet available, even for
single nucleotide variants (SNVs) of protein coding DNA that constitutes only 1 – 3% of the genome. Nature is
the greatest experimenter. By the process of natural selection, Nature evaluates new mutations and existing
variations in the diversity of species. Outcomes of these experiments are revealed by multispecies genome
comparisons. Here I will discuss studies from our group (and others) that have evaluated the relationship ofevolutionary information gleaned from these comparisons with characteristics and in silico functional
diagnoses of SNVs associated with monogenic, complex, and somatic-cell diseases. I conclude that thepatterns of long-term evolutionary conservation and permissible sequence diversity constitute two lenses ofan evolutionary telescope to investigate human variation.
Keywords: Evolution, Medicine, Polymorphisms, Disease, Evolutionary rate

15

Abstracts of Poster Presentations

P-01
Identification and characterization of protochordate promoters
Mayu Fushimi1 and Kohji Okamura2
1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ochanomizu University
2 Centre for Informational Biology, Ochanomizu University
DNA methylation is an ancient process conducted by conserved methyltransferase families. However, itsbiological functions are highly diverged and still elusive in some groups of organisms such as protochordates.
While plants and fungi use DNA methylation to defend against transposable elements, mammals employ it
for the sake of stage-, tissue-, or cell type-specific regulation of gene expression. It is most likely that the gene
regulation by DNA methylation is also seen in all kinds of vertebrate animals, but not in other animals. How
did the earliest vertebrates exploit DNA methylation for their unique gene regulation? To address this issue,
we scrutinized RNA-seq data of a protochordate, Ciona intestinalis, not only to identify but also tocharacterize its promoter sequences. By comparing them to those of vertebrates', we can surmise what had
happened in the promoters of the primordial vertebrates.
Keywords: promoter, transcription start site, CpG island, vertebrate, Ciona intestinalis

16

P-02
Birth and death of genes linked to chromosomal inversion
Yoshikazu Furuta
Department of Medical Genome Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo
Genome rearrangements such as inversion, duplication and gene conversion are important for adaptive
evolution. Availability of closely-related complete genome sequences now helps to detect these and novel
mechanisms of genome rearrangements. A Gram-negative human stomach pathogen Helicobacter pylori is
known for its plastic genome and geographical differentiation. We sequenced 4 Japanese H. pylori strains andcompared them with other 6 H. pylori strains, including European, West African and Amerind. We found copy
number changes specific to East Asian strains in genes of outer membrane protein families. Some of thesechanges were mapped at an endpoint of a large genome inversion. Their sequence analysis suggested
occurrence of DNA Duplication Associated with Inversion (DDAI), a novel mechanism of DNA duplication.. All
the large inversions found between these 10 H. pylori genomes were analyzed and their mechanism wereclassified into 4 types: (i) DDAI, (ii) homologous recombination at long inverted repeats, (iii) recombination atshort inverted repeats, and (iv) inversion adjacent to a mobile element. Recognition of these inversion modes
allowed reconstruction of synteny evolution in this species. This result may serve as a paradigm in analyzing
long and short-term genome evolution in various organisms and in cancer cells thorough extensive DNA
sequencing.
Keywords: genome comparison, gene duplication, genome rearrangement, replicative inversion,
structural variation

P-03
Important roles of coding small open reading frames (sORFs) hidden in plant genomes
Kousuke Hanada, Mieko Higuchi, Masanori Okamoto, Minami Shimizu, Kazuo Shinozaki, Motoaki
Seki and Minami Matsui
RIKEN, Plant Science Center
It is revealed that peptides translated from small open reading frames (sORF) play essential roles in
multicellular organisms. However, small coding sequences tend not be identified in their genomes so that wemay miss essential mechanisms at molecular level. Here, we identified novel 7901 sORFs with high coding
potential hiding in a representative model plant species (A. thaliana). Toward functional analysis of thesecoding sORFs, we generated the expression atlas in 16 organs and 17 environmental conditions by ourdesigned array. We found that 4664 coding sORFs were expressed in at least one experimental condition. In
addition, the evolutionary conservation of each coding sORF was examined in 16 land plant species. Out of
7901 coding sORFs with homologous sequences to at least a plant species, 6516 are subject to purifying
selection. There are 7321 coding sORFs with the evidence of transcription and/or purifying selection. We
manually chose 472 coding sORFs, and generated overexpression mutants for each of 472 coding sORFs.
Approximately ten percentage (48/472) of chosen coding sORFs induced visible phenotypic effects. Taken
together, our finding suggests that a large number of coding sORFs hidden in plant genomes are associatedwith morphogenesis.
Keywords: Denovo genes, Plant, Comparative genomics, Transcriptome, Overexpression

17

P-04
Difference in gene duplicability causes the difference in overall structure of protein-protein
interaction networks among eukaryotes
Takeshi Hase
Dept. of Bioinformatics,Tokyo Medical and Dental University; The Systems Biology InstituteProtein-protein interaction networks (PINs) were suggested to be disassortative networks. In such networks,interactions between high- and low-degree nodes are favored while hub-hub interactions are suppressed. It
was postulated that a disassortative structure minimizes unfavorable cross-talks between different hubcentric functional modules and was positively selected in evolution. However, in this study, we investigatedseveral PINs from various eukaryotes (e.g., yeast, worm, fly, human, and malaria parasite) and showed thatdisassortative structures are not common features among eukaryotes. By simulation studies on the basis of a
duplication-divergence model, we demonstrated that a preferential duplication of low- and high-degree nodes
can generate disassortative and non-disassortative networks, respectively. From these results, wehypothesized that the difference in degree dependence on gene duplications accounts for the difference inassortativity of PINs among species. By comparing 55 proteomes in eukaryotes, we found that proteins withlower degrees showed higher duplicabilities for PINs with a disassortative structure, while opposite trend wasobserved for PIN without disassortative structure. These observations supported our hypothesis. Therefore,
disassortative structures observed in PINs are merely a byproduct of preferential duplications of low-degree
genes, which may be caused by an organism’s living environment.
Keywords: protein-protein interaction networks, gene duplication, eukaryotes

P-05
Molecular Evolution of the Bitter Taste Receptor Gene Family in Three Chimpanzee
Subspecies
Takashi Hayakawa(1, Tohru Sugawara(1, Yasuhiro Go(1, Toshifumi Udono(2, Hirohisa Hirai(1 andHiroo Imai(11)Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, 2)Chimpanzee Sanctuary Uto
In mammals, bitter taste sense is mediated by TAS2R proteins which belong to a large family of G-protein
coupled receptors. Previous study revealed that the TAS2R gene family in Western chimpanzees (Pantroglodytes verus) had high intrasubspecific nucleotide diversity comparative to autosomal noncoding regions.
It was suggested that the haplotypes which might respond different repertoires of ligands had been
evolutionally maintained with weak balancing selection. However, it is unclear whether the TAS2Rs has been
adaptively evolved to environments, such as vegetation. We determined sequences of all 28 TAS2Rs in 10
Eastern chimpanzees (P. t. schweinfurthii) and two Central chimpanzees (P. t. troglodytes) and analyzed
relationship between intrasubspecific diversity and intersubspecific divergence of them together withsequences of 46 Western chimpanzees which were reported previously. Like Western chimpanzees, Eastern
and Central chimpanzees had comparatively high intrasubspecific diversity in the TAS2R family. Besides, theintersubspecific divergence is a little higher than the intrasubspecific diversity and most of haplotypes were
not shared between subspecies. Therefore, compositions of the TAS2R haplotypes in each subspecies
substantially seemed to differ. These results allow us to imagine that the TAS2R family in each chimpanzee
subspecies might independently adapt to each environment, maintaining the subspecies-specific haplotype
diversity.
Keywords: chimpanzee, subspecies, TAS2R family, adaptive evolution

18

P-06
A speciation gene for left-right reversal in snails results in anti-predator adaptation
Masaki Hoso
NCB Naturalis
How speciation genes can spread in a population is poorly understood. In land snails, a single gene for left–right reversal could be responsible for instant speciation, because dextral and sinistral snails have difficultyin mating. However, the traditional two-locus speciation model predicts that a mating disadvantage for thereversal should counteract this speciation. In this study, we show that specialized snake predation of thedextral majority drives prey speciation by reversal. Our experiments demonstrate that sinistral Satsuma
snails (Stylommatophora: Camaenidae) survive predation by Pareas iwasakii (Colubroidea: Pareatidae).
Worldwide biogeography reveals that stylommatophoran snail speciation by reversal has been accelerated in
the range of pareatid snakes, especially in snails that gain stronger anti-snake defense and reproductive
isolation from dextrals by sinistrality. Molecular phylogeny of Satsuma snails further provides intriguing
evidence of repetitive speciation under snake predation. Our study demonstrates that a speciation gene can be
fixed in populations by positive pleiotropic effects on survival.
Keywords: Speciation, Coevolution, Biogegraphy, Animal Behavior, Asymmetry

P-07
Diversification of Activation Domain of Vertebrate Nr2e1
Ai Kamijo, Kei Yura, Atsushi Ogura
Ochanomizu University
A common ancestor of the current animal phyla appeared by the Cambrian explosion. In “light switch theory”
hypothesis, the Cambrian explosion is presumably caused by the acquisition of eyes. The theory tells that
predator-prey relationships changed dramatically due to the acquisition of eyesight by the predators, and thatpreys started to evolve in various forms by selection pressure. If the theory is correct, genes related to eyeformation have been drastically changed in the era of the Cambrian explosion.
Nr2e1 is one of the Eye Field Transcription Factors, and is known to function in morphogenesis of eyes. We
therefore searched for nr2e1 in all the available genome sequences of animal phyla and examined
phylogenetic relationships to estimate the evolutionary process of nr2e1. Based on the phylogenetic tree,
possible ancestral sequences and the protein three-dimensional structures of nr2e1 are deduced to findfunctionally critical changes in amino acid residues. From these predicted structures, the DNA-binding
domain was found better conserved than the activation domain. This result raised the possibilities that theprotein that binds to the activation domain of nr2e1 coevolves along with the changes of the activation
domains.
Keywords: eye, evolution, eye field transcription factor

19

P-08
The Differentiation of Sex Chromosomes in Eutherians and Marsupials
Yukako Katsura
SOKENDAI
Mammalian sex chromosomes originated from pairs of autosomes, and homologous genes on sex chromosomes(gametologs) differentiated as a result of arrest of recombination between the chromosomes. In eutherians,
this differentiation took place in a stepwise fashion. It is believed that the first two steps were generated in
the ancestor of Theria (eutherians and marsupials). In marsupials, however, such differentiation has not been
investigated yet. In this study, orthologous pairs of eutherian gametologs were identified in opossums.
Phylogenetic analysis and the estimated divergence time of these gametologs revealed that they had
differentiated simultaneously in the therian ancestor. A possible gene conversion between X and Y
chromosomes was observed in eutherians. Moreover, to understand the mode of functional divergence ofgametologs, a ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions on a branch leading to each X and Y
gametologs was examined. Based on the results, we concluded that 1) at least eight genes differentiatedsimultaneously in the therian ancestor, but gene conversion in eutherians reduced the nucleotide divergence
between some gametologs and 2) some Y gametologs differentiated to attain a new function, such as sex
determination or spermatogenesis, whereas some gene might have maintained its current function as it wason an autosome.
Keywords: Sex chromosome, Mammals, Gene conversion, Evolutionary strata

P-09
Comparison of network structures of functional modules between the yeast and the
mycoplasma protein interaction networks
Masataka Kikuchi, Soichi Ogishima, Naoki Masuda, Yoshihito Niimura,
Hiroshi Tanaka
Tokyo Medical and Dental University
In the protein interaction network (PIN), remarkable structures have been uncovered: scale-free, smallworld and modular structures. Modular structure is the structure that proteins having similar functions
interact with each other and form the functional module. Entities (proteins) composing functional modules
have been evolutionarily studied, however, it is unclear how PIN structure evolve with functional modules.
Here, we compared network structures of functional modules between the yeast and the mycoplasma PINs.
First we determined functional modules whose proteins show high clustering and functional coefficients, andfound that unexpected characteristic of functional modules in connection degrees for both yeast andmycoplasma PINs; proteins having middle connection degree interact with each other in the yeast PIN,
whereas those having high connection degree do in the mycoplasma PIN. Indeed, those proteins constitute thesame protein complexes (e.g., RNA polymerase, proteasome, anaphase-promoting complex). By comparing theratio of the centrality of functional module proteins to that of other proteins between two species, we foundthat functional modules in the mycoplasma PIN centralize, whereas those in the yeast PIN do not. Our
results suggest that the yeast PINs decentralized and diverged compared to the mycoplasma PINs, which may
reflect expansion of functions from prokaryote to eukaryote.
Keywords: Modular structure, Functional module, Protein interaction network

20

P-10
Ancient Domestication of Tyrosine Recombinase-encoding Crypton Family of DNA
Transposons
Kenji Kojima
Genetic Information Research InstituteDomestication” of transposable elements (TEs) led to evolutionary breakthroughs including the origin of
telomerase and vertebrate acquired immune system. These breakthroughs were accomplished by adaptationof molecular functions essential for TEs, such as reverse transcription, DNA cutting and ligation or DNAbinding. Crypton represents a unique class of TEs using tyrosine recombinase (YR) to cut and rejoin therecombining DNA molecules. Here we report Cryptons from animals, fungi, and stramenopiles, as well as
genes derived from Crypton domestication events. Human genome harbors 6 genes containing DUF3504
domain, which are conserved among jawed vertebrates. We found that DUF3504 domain was derived from
Crypton YR. ZMYM2, 3, and 4 genes were duplicated through 2 rounds of genome duplication in earlyvertebrates, and are orthologs of the WOC gene, which is conserved among bilaterians. The domestication of
Crypton leading to origin of the WOC gene over 910 million years ago, is the second oldest TE domestication
event known to date. Many of DUF3504 genes are transcriptional regulators and the acquisition of DUF3504
domain could have added new regulatory pathways via protein-DNA or protein-protein interactions.
Keywords: transposon, domestication, Crypton, tyrosine recombinase,P-11
Bioinformatic analysis of variation in the 16S rRNA gene in search for universal primers inmetagenomics
Kyungtaek Lim
The University of Tokyo
Background: Many universal primers for conserved regions on the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene have beenused to obtain partial or nearly full-length sequences of 16S rRNA genes from metagenome. However, it was
hardly evaluated whether those primer sequences allow unbiased representation of bacterial population.
Purpose: We aimed to determine suitable primers for the 16S rRNA gene by bioinformatic analyses of all theavailable complete genome sequences of eubacteria.
Method: We retrieved full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences from completely sequenced eubacterial genomes,
after filtering out the partial gene sequences. One reference 16S rRNA gene sequence was selected from eachstrain to construct a reference 16S rRNA library for sorting out minimal number of variations in each primerbinding site.
Major findings: Loss of the anti-Shine-Dalgarno (anti-SD) sequence in 12 bacterial strains disqualified aknown universal primer-binding site (C10:1522-1541). We also identified many rearranged forms of the gene,such as deletion, substitution, transposon insertion, inversion, and partial duplication. Universality of manyof the other primer-binding sites was also challenged by the high nucleotide level variations. Only 5 primerbinding sites (C4:515-531, C4:517-533, C7:1061-1074, C9: 1390-1407 and C10:1492-1507) showed sufficientconservation for design of universal primers. We designed primer formulas for those conserved sites to cover
all the sequences in the reference 16S rRNA library.
Significance: The universal primer sequences we recommended are good subjects for experimental evaluation.
Keywords: 16S rRNA gene, Genome rearrangement, Intragenomic variation, Universal primer,
Anti-Shine-Dalgarno sequence

21

P-12
Effective Gene Collection from the Metatranscriptome of Marine Microorganisms
Mengjie Lin, Atsushi Ogura
Ochanomizu University
Metatranscriptomic studies have not been popular due to problems with reliability, repeatability, redundancy
and cost performance. Here, we propose a normalized metatranscriptomic method that is suitable for thecollection of genes from samples as a platform for comparative transcriptomics.
We constructed two libraries, a non-normalized and a normalized library, from samples of marine
microorganisms taken from Hiroshima bay during the day. We sequenced 0.6M reads for each sample on a
Roche GS FLX, and obtained 0.2M genes after quality control and assembly. A comparison of the two libraries
showed that the number of unique genes was larger in the normalized library. Functional analysis of genes
revealed that ribosomal RNA genes and chloroplast genes were dominant in both libraries. Taxonomic
distribution analysis of the libraries suggests that Stramenopiles form a major taxon that includes diatoms.
These results are consistent with previous information that the diatom is a dominant species in this area andthat genes related to photosynthesis might be active in the daytime.
Normalization of marine metatranscriptome could be useful in increasing the number of genes collected,
and in reducing redundancies among highly expressed genes. Gene collection through the normalization
method was effective in providing a foundation for comparative transcriptomics.
Keywords: metatranscriptome, marine microorganisms

P-13
Habitat variability correlates with duplicate content of Drosophila genomes
Takashi Makino and Masakado Kawata
Tohoku university

The factors limiting the habitat range of species are crucial in understanding their biodiversity and response
to environmental change. Yet the genetic and genomic architectures that produce genetic variation to enable
environmental adaptation have remained poorly understood. Here we show that the proportion of duplicatedgenes (PD) in the whole genomes of fully sequenced Drosophila species is significantly correlated withenvironmental variability within the habitats measured by the climatic tolerance and habitat diversity.
Furthermore, species with a low PD tend to lose the duplicated genes owing to their faster evolution. These
results indicate that the rapid relaxation of functional constraints on duplicated genes resulted in a low PD
for species with lower climatic tolerance, and suggest that the maintenance of duplicated genes gives
organisms an ecological advantage during evolution. We therefore propose that the PD in a genome is related
to adaptation to environmental variation.
Keywords: habitat diversity, climatic tolerance, habitat distributions, evolvability, adaptation,
duplicated genes

22

P-14
Designing microarray: chordate Ciona intestinalis, and its gene expression analysis of lightinduced spawning
Hiromi Matsumae
Tokyo Medical and Dental University
Microarray of Ciona intestinalis had already designed several years ago. However, gene models and functionalannotations of Ciona.intestinalis and microarray technology have been updated in these days. So wedeveloped new microarray for Ciona intestinalis. I will present one example how to design custom-mademicroarrays for animals which genomic resources are available by comparing two designed arrays. Moreover,I will show you the result of gene expression analysis focused on light-induced spawning of adult Ciona
intestinalis using by the new tool.
Keywords: chordate, gene expression analysis, microarray, Ciona intestinalis, reproduction

P-15
Paralogous Conserved Non-coding Sequences Derived from the Two-round Whole Genome
Duplications
Masatoshi Matsunami and Naruya Saitou
Department of Genetics, School of Life Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies(SOKENDAI), JapanThe evidence of the two-round whole genome duplications (2R WGD) occurred in the ancestral vertebrate
genome is the existence of paralogous conserved synteny blocks within each vertebrate genome. These
synteny blocks are bearing paralogs and conserved non-coding sequences (CNSs) that are candidate of cisregulatory elements. The CNSs might play important roles in the vertebrate evolution. However, the relation
between paralogs and paralogous CNSs is still unclear. Thus, detecting paralogous CNSs and inferring theirrelation is important to understand evolution after the 2R WGD.
Orthologous CNSs of each synteny block were detected by using previously described synteny data,
and 7,924 CNSs are conserved among 8 vertebrate species. These orthologous CNSs were compared eachother to detect paralogous CNSs. From these analysis, we found that there is weak correlation between the
distribution of paralogous CNS and the distribution of paralogous genes. This result suggests that paralogous
CNSs might contribute to paralogous synteny retention.
Keywords: Genome duplication, Non-coding region, Vertebrates

23

P-16
Diversity of Olfactory Receptor Gene Repertoires among 38 Mammals
Yoshihito Niimura (1), Atsushi Matsui (2)(1) Department of Bioinformatics, Medical Research Institute, Tokyo Medical and Dental University(2) Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
Olfaction, the sense of smell, is essential for the survival of animals. Odor molecules in the environment aredetected by olfactory receptors (ORs) encoded by a large multigene family. Previous studies using the wholegenome sequences showed that the numbers of OR genes are significantly smaller in higher primates
including humans (<400) than most of other mammals examined (e.g., mice and rats have >1,000). To further
investigate the diversity of OR gene repertoires among mammals, I extensively identified the OR genes fromthe draft genome sequences of 38 diverse mammals. Because the genome sequences of many species are at
low coverage (<2x), I estimated the number of OR genes in the entire genome by using TraceArchive database.
The results demonstrated that the estimated numbers of functional OR genes are extremely variable, ranging
from only ~10 in dolphins to ~2,000 in elephants. Moreover, the number of functional OR genes and thefractions of pseudogenes are not correlated to each other, suggesting that the fraction of OR pseudogenes is apoor indicator to the olfactory ability of an animal. These results supports the hypothesis that OR genefamilies dynamically changed during evolution depending on each organism’s living environment.
Keywords: Olfactory receptor, Multigene family, Gene duplication, Mammalian evolution,
Comparative genomics

P-17
Cultural Domestication of Chicken*Atsushi Ogura, *Lin Mengjie, ∆Tomoyoshi Komiyama*Ochanomizu University, ∆Tokai University

Chickens were first domesticated from Red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus gallus) around in Southeast Asia.
Domesticated chickens are currently used for various purposes. Since a long time ago, chickens may havefascinated the ancient human, not only because of the usefulness as potential foods but also because of theircolorful appearance and characteristic songs. Fighting cocks, Shamo and long-crowing chicken, Nganakidori
are typical examples of chickens that have been bred for purposes other than foods. The Shamo has muchlarger and more aggressive than other domesticated chickens. Naganakidori have been bred for the purposesof entertainment and appreciation. Therefore, the question arises as to what sides in these chickens are underselective pressures. We examined genes that are responsible for aggressiveness and crowing behavior by
utilizing aCGH designed from chicken genome with seven samples of cultural domesticated chicken. Fromthese results, we found that a number of genes are mutated in cultural domesticated chickens, and thosemutations related to cultural domestication are different from those of broiler and layer.

24

P-18
Molecular Evolutionary Analysis of Retrogenes in Green Algae.
Kazutaka Takeshita, Mathieu Deblieck, Dorota Buczek, Kanako O. Koyanagi, Hidemi Watanabe,
Wojciech Makalowski
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University
The genomes of two green algae, one from unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the otherfrom multicellular Volvox carteri, revealed both genomes, in spite of their fundamental differences inorganismal complexity and life history, have surprising similarities at the molecular level. This indicated thatthe root of multicellularity, at least in multicellular green algae, can be associated with lineage specificmodification of protein coding genes shared between two algae rather than acquirements of new protein
coding genes in the multicellular lineage. As a potential evolutionary driving force for the multicellularity ingreen algae, we focused on gene duplications by retrotransposition and its resultant retrogenes. We found thatthe amount of retrogenes in Volvox was significantly bigger than those in Chlamydomonas and haveconducted molecular evolutionary analysis of retrogenes in both species. We show some interesting retrogenes
in Volvox and discuss about retrogenes’ contribution to the multicellularity in green algae.
Keywords: retrogene, retrotransposition, green algae, multicellularity

P-19
Evolution of gene regulatory networks by fluctuating selection and intrinsic constraints
Masaki E. Tsuda, Masakado Kawata
RIKEN Advanced Science Institute
Various characteristics of complex gene regulatory networks (GRNs) have been discovered during the last
decade, e.g., redundancy, exponential indegree distributions, scale-free outdegree distributions, mutational
robustness, and evolvability. However, it is not well understood whether these characteristics are the direct
products of selection or those of other evolutionary forces such as mutational biases and biophysicalconstraints. To elucidate the causal factors that promoted the evolution of complex GRNs, we examined theeffect of fluctuating environmental selection and some intrinsic constraining factors on GRN evolution byusing an individual-based model. We found that the evolution of complex GRNs is remarkably promoted by
fixation of beneficial gene duplications under unpredictably fluctuating environmental conditions and thatsome internal factors inherent in organisms, such as mutational bias, gene expression costs, and constraints
on expression dynamics, are also important for the evolution of GRNs. The results demonstrated that various
biological properties observed in GRNs could evolve as a result of not only adaptation to unpredictableenvironmental changes but also non-adaptive processes owing to the properties of the organisms themselves.
Keywords: gere regulatory network, gene duplication, genome architecture, evolution, fluctuating
environment

25

P-20
Lineage-specific Changes Within Genome Components Of Molluscs Revealed By Partial
Genome Shotgun Sequencing
Masa-aki Yoshida, Atsushi Ogura
Ochanomizu University
The cephalopods (squids and octopuses) provide an useful model to examine lineage specific genomic changes
causing nervous system evolution of molluscs in which cephalopods developed complex eye structure andlarge-sized brain. We have projected the pygmy squid genome sequencing project because the pygmy squid
have the smallest genome (2.1Gb) in the cephalopods. For the first attempt, we conducted comparative
genome structure analyses of three molluscs, pygmy squid, nautilus and scallops using partial genome
shotgun sequencing. We tried to find whole genome duplication that might produced large amount of novel
functional genes and to extract lineage specific repetitive element (RE) that might caused genome size
expansion. We, first, observed large-scale gene duplications in all the three molluscs. We, then, identified
common and lineage-specific REs including 38,258 novel REs as well as RE frequencies by homology-based
RE detection and de novo RE detection. Nautilus has the largest genome among three species, but also thesmallest proportion of REs, indicating that the increase in genome size resulted not from RE expansion.
Squid, on the other hand, has the largest proportion of REs but smaller genome size than nautilus eventhough they have complicated eye and brain.
Keywords: Genome sequencing, NGS, whole genome duplication, repetitive elements, cephalopods

P-21
A codon substitution model that incorporates the effect of the GC contents, the gene density
and the density of CpG islands of human chromosomes
Kazuharu Misawa
RIKEN
Abstract
Background: Developing a model for codon substitutions is essential for the analyses of protein sequences.
Recent studies on the mutation rates in the non-coding regions have shown that CpG mutation rates in thehuman genome are negatively correlated to the local GC content and to the densities of functional elements.
This study aimed at understanding the effect of genomic features, namely, GC content, gene density, andfrequency of CpG islands, on the rates of codon substitution in human chromosomes.
Results: Codon substitution rates of CpG to TpG mutations, TpG to CpG mutations, and non-CpG transitions
and transversions in humans were estimated by comparing the coding regions of thousands of human andchimpanzee genes and inferring their ancestral sequences by using macaque genes as the outgroup. Since thegenomic features are depending on each other, partial regression coefficients of these features were obtained.
Conclusion: The substitution rates of codons depend on gene densities of the chromosomes. Transcriptionassociated mutation is one such pressure. On the basis of these results, a model of codon substitutions thatincorporates the effect of genomic features on codon substitution in human chromosomes was developed.

Keywords: Genome sequencing, Mutation rate, codon substitution, male-driven evolution, CpG hypermutability,
methylation

26

P-22
SRA Hacks: better ways to use public data of next generation sequencing.
Tazro Ohta
Research Organization of Information and Systems, Database Center for Life Science
Next generation sequencer (NGS) has now become one of the most important method for genetics. Sequence
Read Archive (SRA) is a public database maintained by NCBI, EBI, and DDBJ to archive sequence data
generated by NGS, but large amount of sequence files and complicated metadata files which describe thebackground of the data make the database too complicated to use. Here, we introduce our web services,
Survey of Read Archives (SRAs: http://sra.dbcls.jp/) and Kusarinoko (http://g86.dbcls.jp/kusarinoko/). SRAs
offers statistics of SRA to grasp what it contains, and the interface to search those data by the information of
the published article. This enables to find the reliable data and it also provides more background informationof the data which is needed for analysis. Then, we developed Kusarinoko, which is the interface to show
integrated metadata and information from published article, for example, experimental design, sequencer
platform, and library construction. These services will help researchers who want to use public NGS data for
their research activity, and we will keep improving them by integrating other databases and web services.
Keywords: SRA Hacks: better ways to use public data of next generation sequencing.

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Participants(Invited/Oral/Poster)28