Files
Abstract
Mutations are an essential evolutionary force for all living organisms on Earth. They occur at random and can be on the scale of nucleotides of chromosomes, or of genomes. Understanding the dynamics of mutation is an essential step in understanding biodiversity and evolution of life. Much is known about outside factors influencing mutation rates and spectra – i.e. UV radiation or mutagenic chemicals. However, there is little known about the effects of factors within genomes, such as copy number changes or presence of mobile genetic elements, on the genomic and transcriptomic scales. In this dissertation, I describe two studies on intragenomic factors: one on the transcriptomic consequences of aneuploidy and possibility of dosage compensation, and another on the effects of the presence of mobile genetic elements on mutation rate and spectra. In both of these studies, I use species from the genus Saccharomyces: S. cerevisiae and S. paradoxus, which are both incredibly useful model organisms for this sort of analysis. Each study involves a mutation accumulation experiment followed by whole-transcriptome or whole-genome sequencing and analysis. The studies presented here provide evidence that characteristics of genomes themselves have an effect on the transcription of genes and the accumulation of mutations over evolutionary time.