J. Roman Arguello
arguello at uchicago.edu
Association:
- Committee on Evolutionary Biology
- Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science
Reseach:
My reseach is a combination of molecular evolution and population genetics using Drosophila species. A substantial amount of my reasearch has focused on the evolutioanry dynamics of gene familes, both very young families and very old:
- Regarding the young families, I have been involved in experimental studies of young chimeric genes. We are interested in the genetic mechanisms behind these events, the roles of neutral and selective forces in their early histories, and hopefully obtaining data sets that sheds more light on the rate of their formation. In addition, we have carried out experiments to help determine differences in funcitionality between copies.
- Regarding the old familes, I have worked in collaboration with Lindy McBride (U.C. Davis) to study the evolution of the chemoreceptor gene family (olfactory and gustatory receptors) between species of the melanogaster subroup. Addtionally, I am looking at the population variability between duplicates of the most variable gene in this family, Or67a.
I have also been working on a population genetic analysis of the 4th chromosome from D. yakuba, D. simulans and D. melanogaster. This study follows up previous work that uncovered surprisingly high amounts of nucleotide diversity and evidence for recombination. Previously, the 4th was believed to be nonrecombining and monomorphic. The current work signifiantly expands the sequence data set. We would like to obtain more fine scale estimates of recombination and diversity, as well as address the role of gene conversion in these patterns.
Publications:
9. Shuang Yang # , J. Roman Arguello # , Xin Li, Yun Ding, Qi Zhou, Ying Chen, Yue Zhang, Ruoping Zhao, Frederic Brunet, Lixin Peng, Manyuan Long, Wen Wang. 2008. Repetitive Element-mediated Recombination as a Mechanism for New Gene Origination in Drosophila. PLoS Genetics Vol. 4, No. 1, e3. (# equal contribution) pdf
8. Carolyn S. McBride # , J. Roman Arguello # . 2007. Five Drosophila Genomes Reveal Nonneutral Evolution and the Signature of Host Specialization in the Chemoreceptor Superfamily. Genetics 177, 1395-1416. (# equal contribution) pdf
7. Drosophila Comparative Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium . 2007. Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny. Nature 450, 203-218. (Organizer and coauthor of chemosensory system section of paper) pdf
6. J. Roman Arguello , Chuanzhu Fan, Wen Wang and Manyuan Long . Origination of Chimeric Genes through DNA-level Recombination (review). Volff J-N (ed): Gene and Protein Evolution, Genome Dynamics. Karger Basel, Switzerland, 2007, vol 3, pp 147-162. pdf
5. J. Roman Arguello, Ying Chen , Shuang Yang, Wen Wang, Manyuan Long. 2006. Origination of an X-linked Testes Chimeric Gene by Illegitimate Recombination in Drosophila. PLoS Genet 2(5): e77. pdf
4. Eric A. Hoffman, Niclas Kolm, Anders Berglund, J. Roman Arguello, and Adam G. Jones. 2005. Ggenetic structure in a coral-reef associated Banggai cardinalfish, Pterapogon kauderni . Molecular Ecology, 14, 1467-1375. pdf
3. Jones, A. G., J. R. Arguello, and S. J. Arnold. 2004. Molecular parentage analysis in experimental newt populations: the response of mating system measures to variation in operational sex ratio. American Naturalist 164: 444-456. pdf
2. Hoffman, E. A., J. R. Arguello, N. Kolm, A. Berglund, and A. G. Jones. 2004. Eleven polymorphic microsatellite loci in a coral reef fish, Pterapogon kauderni. Molecular Ecology Notes 4:342-344. pdf
1. Jones, A. G., J. R. Arguello, and S. J. Arnold. 2002. Validation of Bateman’s principles: a genetic study of mating patterns and sexual selection in newts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 269:2533-2539. pdf