Graduation Semester and Year
Spring 2025
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Quantitative Biology
Department
Biology
First Advisor
Dr. Todd Castoe
Second Advisor
Dr. Esther Betran
Third Advisor
Dr. Jeffrey Demuth
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Luke Frishkoff
Fifth Advisor
Dr. Mark Pellegrino
Abstract
Understanding the relationship between genotype and phenotype is a fundamental goal of biology. However, the vastly complex nature of eukaryotic gene regulation can make deriving precise relationships between genotype and phenotype challenging. The gene regulatory architecture of snake venom systems provide an opportunity to study this problem in a phenotypic system with immense variation in phenotypes and the underlying genetics. Using a set of integrated functional genomic approaches with snake venoms as a central model, in this dissertation, I provide several examples of the regulatory mechanisms by which diversity in phenotypes arises. Specifically, I identify how gene expression heterogeneity between cells of the same cell type are the result of the progressively activated pathways whose activity differs between cells. Next, I sample functional genomic data from closely-related individuals from different populations and species to identify gene regulatory network mechanisms that correlate with the expression of individual venom genes. Finally, I investigate the mechanisms that allow gain and loss of regulatory functionality in transposable elements associated with venom genes. Together, this work provides several examples for how non-traditional systems provides deep insight into the evolution of novel phenotypes, and how specific mechanisms of genotypic variation contribute to this process.
Keywords
genomics, single-cell, Hi-C, multiomics, functional genomics, ATAC-seq, Iso-Seq
Disciplines
Bioinformatics | Evolution | Genomics
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gopalan, Siddharth S., "SNAKE VENOMS AS MODELS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF GENE REGULATORY NETWORKS" (2025). Biology Dissertations. 225.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/biology_dissertations/225