Bitard-Feildel, T. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2018

HCAtk and pyHCA: A Toolkit and Python API for the Hydrophobic Cluster Analysis of Protein Sequences.

Motivation: Detecting protein domains sharing no similarity to known domains, as stored in domain databases, is a challenging problem, particularly for unannotated proteomes, domains emerged recently, fast diverging proteins or domains with intrinsically disordered regions.\n\nResults: We developed pyHCA and HCAtk, a python API and standalone tool gathering together improved versions of previously developed methodologies, with new functionalities. The developed tools can be either used from command line or from a python API.\n\nAvailability: HCAtk and pyHCA are available at https://github.com/T-B-F/pyHCA under the CeCILL-C license.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2017

Hemimetabolous genomes reveal molecular basis of termite eusociality

Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the first, 2GB genome of a cockroach, Blattella germanica, and the 1.3GB genome of the drywood termite, Cryptotermes secundus. We show evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality by comparing the genomes and transcriptomes of three termites and the cockroach against the background of 16 other eusocial and non-eusocial insects. Dramatic adaptive changes in genes underlying the production and perception of pheromones confirm the importance of chemical communication in the termites. These are accompanied by major changes in gene regulation and the molecular evolution of caste determination. Many of these results parallel molecular mechanisms of eusocial evolution in Hymenoptera. However, the specific solutions are remarkably different, thus revealing a striking case of convergence in one of the major evolutionary transitions in biological complexity.

evolutionary biology↗