témavezető: Orbán László
helyszín (magyar oldal): Keszthely helyszín rövidítés: KE
A kutatási téma leírása:
Unlike the major land vertebrate clades, fishes show high level of diversity in regulation of their reproduction, including various combinations and lack of sex chromosomes, effect of several external factors on sex determination or early sex differentiation, natural and induced sex reversal, sex bias and various forms of hermaphroditism. Currently, our understanding of these processes and their potential connections is rather limited. The main reasons for this are the richness of various combinations among the >34 thousand species and the complexity of these processes that make their efficient study with classical approaches impossible.
In this project, the student will analyse the environmental factors potentially capable of overriding the genetic regulatory mechanisms of fish reproduction and sex with the tools of functional genomics. According to our working hypothesis, the above processes are controlled in teleosts by a similar, largely overlapping set of genes or genomic regions with some variations. Once this core set of loci/genes and their regulatory connections are revealed, fish reproduction will be easier to understand and even control.
The target species are: zebrafish (model), European perch and possibly a special variety of a food fish species fully acclimated to high temperatures. We are planning to study the effect of temperature and possibly those of light and xenobiotics. The above studies are expected to provide answers for the following major research questions:
1) How do environmental factors override genetic sex determination in fishes?
2) Are the gene sets involved in environmentally induced sex reversal conserved in fishes?
3) Can early heat treatment be used to induce sex reversal and increased robustness in cultured freshwater fishes?
Although zebrafish has become a major model for various areas of biology over the past four decades, its reproduction is not very well understood. Together with their collaborators in Barcelona, the former research team of the supervisor has contributed to the better understanding of processes regulating zebrafish sex over the past 19 years, including a recent publication revealing the the role of heat-stress in masculiniziation of temperature-sensitive lines (Ribas et al., PNAS 114(6): E941-E950, 2017).
We will use the platforms and approaches developed by the former Singaporean research team of the supervisor for deeper analysis of these processes. The extension of the study to European perch and potentially heat-acclimated food fishes will provide a broader comparative view.
előírt nyelvtudás: English további elvárások: MSc. in biology or a closely related discipline
Good command of English
Basic level of experience in molecular biology or genomics and possibly bioinformatics
felvehető hallgatók száma: 1
Jelentkezési határidő: 2021-05-31
2024. IV. 17. ODT ülés Az ODT következő ülésére 2024. június 14-én, pénteken 10.00 órakor kerül sor a Semmelweis Egyetem Szenátusi termében (Bp. Üllői út 26. I. emelet).
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