Biology subjects

Aurelien Tellier

Publications and source records attributed to Aurelien Tellier.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2016

Pooled enrichment sequencing identifies diversity and evolutionary pressures at NLR resistance genes within a wild tomato population.

Nod-like Receptors (NLRs) are Nucleotide-binding domain and Leucine rich Repeats (NB-LRR)-containing proteins that are important in plant resistance signaling. Many of the known pathogen Resistance (R)-genes in plants are NLRs and they can recognise directly or indirectly pathogen molecules. As such, divergence and copy number variants at these genes is found to be high between species. Within populations, positive and balancing selection are to be expected if plants coevolve with their pathogens. In order to understand the complexity of R-gene coevolution in wild non-model species, it is necessary to identify the full range of NLRs and infer their evolutionary history.\n\nHere we investigate and reveal polymorphism occurring at 220 NLR genes within one population of the partially selfing wild tomato species S. pennellii. We use a combination of enrichment sequencing and pooling of ten individuals, to specifically sequence NLR genes in a resource and cost-effective manner. We focus on the effects which different of mapping and SNP calling software and settings have on calling polymorphisms in customized pooled samples. Our results are accurately verified using Sanger sequencing of polymorphic gene fragments. Our results indicate that some NLRs, namely 13 out of 220, have maintained polymorphism within our S. pennellii population. These genes show a wide range of {pi}N/{pi}s ratios and differing site frequency spectra. We compare our observed rate of heterozygosity to expectations for this selfing and bottlenecked population. We conclude that our method enables us to pinpoint NLR genes which have experienced natural selection in their habitat.

Plant Biology↗

bioRxiv2015

The Fisher-Wright model with deterministic seed bank and selection

Seed banks are a common characteristics to many plant species, which allow storage of genetic diversity in the soil as dormant seeds for various periods of time. We investigate an above-ground population following a Fisher-Wright model with selection coupled with a deterministic seed bank assuming the length of the seed bank is kept constant and the number of seeds is large. To assess the combined impact of seed banks and selection on genetic diversity, we derive a general diffusion model. We compute the equilibrium solution of the site-frequency spectrum and derive the times to fixation of an allele with and without selection. Finally, it is demonstrated that seed banks enhance the effect of selection onto the site-frequency spectrum while slowing down the time until the mutation-selection equilibrium is reached.

Evolutionary Biology↗

bioRxiv2014

Coalescence 2.0: a multiple branching of recent theoretical developments and their applications

Population genetics theory has laid the foundations for genomics analyses including the recent burst in genome scans for selection and statistical inference of past demographic events in many prokaryote, animal and plant species. Identifying SNPs under natural selection and underpinning species adaptation relies on disentangling the respective contribution of random processes (mutation, drift, migration) from that of selection on nucleotide variability. Most theory and statistical tests have been developed using the Kingmans coalescent theory based on the Wright-Fisher population model. However, these theoretical models rely on biological and life-history assumptions which may be violated in many prokaryote, fungal, animal or plant species. Recent theoretical developments of the so called multiple merger coalescent models are reviewed here ({Lambda}-coalescent, beta-coalescent, Bolthausen-Snitzman, {Xi}-coalescent). We explicit how these new models take into account various pervasive ecological and biological characteristics, life history traits or life cycles which were not accounted in previous theories such as 1) the skew in offspring production typical of marine species, 2) fast adapting microparasites (virus, bacteria and fungi) exhibiting large variation in population sizes during epidemics, 3) the peculiar life cycles of fungi and bacteria alternating sexual and asexual cycles, and 4) the high rates of extinction-recolonization in spatially structured populations. We finally discuss the relevance of multiple merger models for the detection of SNPs under selection in these species, for population genomics of very large sample size and advocate to potentially examine the conclusion of previous population genetics studies.

Evolutionary Biology↗