MOLECULAR GENETICS AND EVOLUTION OF DIM-LIGHT AND COLOR VISION

Organisms have encountered a diverse array of habitats and adapted to these environments with an equally diverse array of structures and functions. The long-term goal of our studies is to elucidate mechanisms that drive these adaptive changes at the molecular and functional levels using vision as a model system.

For the last 20 years, we have been studying the molecular genetics and evolution of color vision in a diverse range of species, from fish to human. We are currently cloning the opsin genes of five deep-sea fishes lampfish (S. leucepsarus), loosejaw (A. scintillans), scabbardfish (L. fitchi), thornyhead (S. altivelis), and viperfish (C. macouni), which live at different depths, ranging from 200 to 4,000 m. Among these, the lampfish and viperfish emit bioluminescence at ~480 and the loosejaw at ~480 and ~700 nm. We plan to explore three features of visual pigments: 1) the molecular and chemical bases of the spectral tuning of visual pigments; 2) exploration of adaptive evolution by engineering ancestral pigments and performing mutagenesis analyses; and 3) co-evolution of paralogous pigments in each of the five deep-sea fish species. In experiments, molecular/cellular methods, such as construction and screening of DNA and cDNA libraries, DNA sequencing, mutagenesis, and transfection of cultured cells will be heavily used. In theoretical analyses, quantum chemical computations are performed in the Prof. Keiji Morokuma’s (Co-PI) laboratory in Chemistry Department.

Currently, we are looking for recent graduates who are well versed in experimental molecular biology/genetics and are interested in evolution. If you are interested, please send CV to:

Shozo Yokoyama (PI)
Asa G. Candler Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Emory University
1510 Clifton Road
Rollins Research Center
Atlanta, GA 30322
Tel:404-727-5379
FAX:404-727-2880
Email:syokoya@emory.edu

(8/1/2008)

Student Positions:

Laboratory Assistant position for 10-15 hours per week. Duties will include washing glassware and making reagents.

If interested, please contact Dr. George Jones at george.h.jones@emory.edu.

(11/11/2009)