Making Sense of Animal Genome Size Standards

Presentation Type

Poster

Major

Biology

Abstract

Genome size is defined as the DNA content in one set of chromosomes reported as the C-value in pictograms (pg). Genome size analysis can provide critical information for comparing evolutionary, species, and population relationships. Currently, animal C-values ranging from 0.02 to 132.83pg are available for approximately 5000 species, but a majority of animal C-values remain unmeasured. C- value variation may reflect environmental influence, evolutionary history, ploidy level, and cell or body size. Currently C-value variation does not correlate reliably to most of these hypothesized factors. This may be due to scarce data, however, a confounding problem is that different genome size studies often report different results even for the same species! Why would that be? Two sources of variation or error are probable; 1) the technique used, and 2) the dependence upon a “known” standard animal C-value to determine an unknown C-value. Currently, about a dozen animals are used as standards for genome size analysis. Unfortunately, for the common technique known as Flow Cytometry (FCM), the genome sizes of these “standards” do not correlate, meaning that C-values based on different standards are not the same. It is difficult to rely on reported data when standard values are not reproducible. The goal of this study is to identify a small set of common, reliable animals to use for genome size standard correlation using FCM. For FCM we isolate nuclei from blood or tissue in Kreb’s Ringers containing 0.1% Triton X-100, stain with Propidium Iodide and then measure fluorescence on a Quanta SC-MPL system. We measured nuclei from chicken, cow, Drosophila, goldfish, horse, yellow mealworm, and zebra fish. Of these, only three matched reported C-values: Cow, 3.908pg, Drosophila, 0.165pg and Horse, 3.322pg. We continue work toward finding additional animal standards that cross correlate to chicken and Drosophila, thus forming a globally useful standard C-value set.

Faculty Mentor

Thomas Vandergon

Funding Source or Research Program

Academic Year Undergraduate Research Initiative

Location

Waves Cafeteria, Tyler Campus Center

Start Date

21-3-2014 2:00 PM

End Date

21-3-2014 3:00 PM

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Mar 21st, 2:00 PM Mar 21st, 3:00 PM

Making Sense of Animal Genome Size Standards

Waves Cafeteria, Tyler Campus Center

Genome size is defined as the DNA content in one set of chromosomes reported as the C-value in pictograms (pg). Genome size analysis can provide critical information for comparing evolutionary, species, and population relationships. Currently, animal C-values ranging from 0.02 to 132.83pg are available for approximately 5000 species, but a majority of animal C-values remain unmeasured. C- value variation may reflect environmental influence, evolutionary history, ploidy level, and cell or body size. Currently C-value variation does not correlate reliably to most of these hypothesized factors. This may be due to scarce data, however, a confounding problem is that different genome size studies often report different results even for the same species! Why would that be? Two sources of variation or error are probable; 1) the technique used, and 2) the dependence upon a “known” standard animal C-value to determine an unknown C-value. Currently, about a dozen animals are used as standards for genome size analysis. Unfortunately, for the common technique known as Flow Cytometry (FCM), the genome sizes of these “standards” do not correlate, meaning that C-values based on different standards are not the same. It is difficult to rely on reported data when standard values are not reproducible. The goal of this study is to identify a small set of common, reliable animals to use for genome size standard correlation using FCM. For FCM we isolate nuclei from blood or tissue in Kreb’s Ringers containing 0.1% Triton X-100, stain with Propidium Iodide and then measure fluorescence on a Quanta SC-MPL system. We measured nuclei from chicken, cow, Drosophila, goldfish, horse, yellow mealworm, and zebra fish. Of these, only three matched reported C-values: Cow, 3.908pg, Drosophila, 0.165pg and Horse, 3.322pg. We continue work toward finding additional animal standards that cross correlate to chicken and Drosophila, thus forming a globally useful standard C-value set.