Arcadi Navarro i Tomàs Marquès

Group website


Research Outline

We investigate the extent of all kinds of genome variation in species that drastically differ in their phenotypes. We study genome variation, gene expression and epigenetic differences in humans in the context of great ape evolution; in other mammalian genomes, such as canids; or even in viruses. Interrogating these patterns of genome diversity, we can infer what are the forces that affect living organisms, how and when they act, and how they affect such various things as senescence or the differential susceptibility of different persons to certain diseases.

 

Research Lines

  • Genomic variation in ape genomes

Characterizing the variation of thousands of human genomes is standard today. However, primates (our closest relatives) are the ideal set of species for studying the evolution of these features from both mechanistic and adaptive points of view.

 

  • Epigenetics and transcriptomics of non-human primates

The dynamics of DNA methylation and regulatory changes between humans and their closest relatives are still poorly understood. In this project, we evaluate global gene regulation patterns in recent human evolution to identify potential contributor to the base of human specific molecular traits.

 

  • The evolution of senescence

Senescence is a progressive, inevitable, irreversible, and time-dependent decline in physiological function that affects most organisms, which eventually leads to death. Senescence is arguably the major biological and biomedical challenge of the 21st century but it is also a fascinating and old evolutionary problem that we try to tackle with new tools.

 

Team during 2017-18

  • Postdocs: Carlos Morcillo, Martin Kuhlwilm, Esther Lizano, Joseph Orkin, David deJuan, Marco Telford, Borja Esteve, Gerard Muntané.
  • PhD students: Marc deManuel, Raquel Garcia, Lukas Kuderna, Aitor Serres

    Claudia Fontsere, Sojung Han, Luis Fernandez, Manuel Solis, Irene Lobon, Paula Esteller, Laura Batlle, Txema Heredia, Xavier Farré, Marina Brasó, Diego Hartasanchez.

  • Technicians: Marina Alvarez.

  • Research visits: ​​

    • Jonnas Niemann, PhD Student, U York, UK, march-June 2018.
    • Tom van der Val, PhD Student, Uppsala U, May-July 2018.
    • Fatima S. Barreiro, PhD Student, Copenhagen, April-august 2018.

Selected publications 2017-18

  • J Hernandez-Rodriguez, M Arandjelovic, J Lester, C de Filippo, A Weihmann, M Meyer, S Angedakin, F Casals, A Navarro, L Vigilant, HS Kühl, K Langergraber, C Boesch, D Hughes and T Marques-Bonet “The impact of endogenous content, replicates and pooling on genome capture from fecal samples” Molecular Ecology Resources, 2018 10:46AM EST | DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.12728.
  • Lukas F. K. Kuderna; Chad Tomlinson; LaDeana W. Hillier; Annabel Tran; Ian Fiddes; Joel Armstrong; Hafid Laayouni; David Gordon; John Huddleston; Raquel Garcia Perez; Inna Povolotskaya; Aitor Serres Armero; Jèssica Gómez Garrido; Daniel Ho; Paolo Ribeca; Tyler Alioto; Richard E. Green; Benedict Paten; Arcadi Navarro; Jaume Betranpetit; Javier Herrero; Evan E. Eichler; Andrew J. Sharp; Lars Feuk; Wesley C. Warren; Tomas Marques-Bonet. “A 3-way hybrid approach to generate a new high quality chimpanzee reference genome (Pan_tro_3.0)” GigaScience 2017.
  • Ying Zhu, André MM Sousa, Tianliuyun Gao, Mario Skarica, Mingfeng Li, Gabriel Santpere, Paula Esteller-Cucala, David Juan, Luis Ferrández-Peral, Forrest O Gulden, Mo Yang, Daniel J Miller, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Yuka Imamura Kawasawa, Hongyu Zhao, Nenad Sestan “Spatiotemporal transcriptomic divergence across human and macaque brain development” Science 2018, 362:6420.
  • André MM Sousa, Ying Zhu, Mary Ann Raghanti, Robert R Kitchen, Marco Onorati, Andrew TN Tebbenkamp, Bernardo Stutz, Kyle A Meyer, Mingfeng Li, Yuka Imamura Kawasawa, Fuchen Liu, Raquel Garcia Perez, Marta Mele, Tiago Carvalho, Mario Skarica, Forrest O Gulden, Mihovil Pletikos, Akemi Shibata, Alexa R Stephenson, Melissa K Edler, John J Ely, John D Elsworth, Tamas L Horvath, Patrick R Hof, Thomas M Hyde, Joel E Kleinman, Daniel R Weinberger, Mark Reimers, Richard P Lifton, Shrikant M, Mane, James P Noonan, Ed S Lein, James A Knowles, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Chet C Sherwood, Mark B Gerstein, Nenad Sestan “Molecular and cellular reorganization of neural circuits in the human lineage”  Science 358 (6366), 1027-1032.
  • G. Muntané, X. Farré, J. A. Rodríguez, C. Pegueroles. D. A. Hughes, J. P. de Magalhães T. Gabaldón and A. Navarro (2018). Biological Processes Modulating Longevity across Primates: A Phylogenetic Genome-Phenome Analysis. Molecular Biology and Evolution 35(8): 1990-2004 (doi: 10.1093/molbev/msy105).
 

Other relevant information 2017-18

  • HHMI International Award 2017.
  • Keynote Speaker EMBL Council 2017, Barcelona.
  • Keynote Speaker Fossils and Ancient Genomics Symposium 2018, China.