Because of our unique and long-standing expertise in gene prediction and genome annotation, as well as our expertise in documenting ancient whole genome duplication events, our lab has been (and still is) involved in many international genome projects.
Early 2021, seven Ghent University research groups received funding so that they can develop projects throughout the next 7 years. Our research group was one of them. The Methusalem program offers the most prestigious and extensive funding from the Ghent University Special Research Fund. A total of 27.5 million euros have been allocated for a period of 7 years.
At present, knowledge about the (eco-)evolutionary effects of polyploidy is largely based on either the comparison of polyploids with the contemporary descendants of their diploid ancestors and their synthetic tetraploids or on signatures of Whole Genome Duplications (WGDs) in present-day plant genomes. These comparative methods, although informative, suffer from potential biases introduced by evolution of both the polyploid and its ancestors after establishment.
We have recently started building our own artificial framework to mimic biological evolution. In our framework, every Digital Organism (DO) has its own genome, which has been inspired by the model previously proposed by Reil (1999) and consists of a randomly created string of digits. Genes are not pre-specified, but identified in the randomly built genome. Compared to the initial model of Reil, our model makes an explicit distinction between regulatory and structural genes. Upon initialization of a new DO, specific genes will be activated, dependent on certain cues of the environment.
Seagrasses colonized the sea on at least three independent occasions to form the basis of one of the most productive and widespread coastal ecosystems on the planet. Here we report the genome of Zostera marina (L.), the first, to our knowledge, marine angiosperm to be fully sequenced. This reveals unique insights into the genomic losses and gains involved in achieving the structural and physiological adaptations required for its marine lifestyle, arguably the most severe habitat shift ever accomplished by flowering plants.
The AOCC aims to sequence the genomes of more than 100 African neglected or under utilized crops, as well as to resequence hundred lines for each species. We aim to make these reference genomes available through our online genome annotation system ORCAE at http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be/orcae/aocc
Gene analyses revealing the capacity of marine flowering plants to exist under changing environmental conditions provide clues for the conservation and sustainable use of important ecosystems
Prof. Yves Van de Peer has been appointed as Scientific Director of the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, succeeding Prof. Dirk Inzé, who recently retired from this position.
