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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

promotoer region indels, expression bias, polyploid cotton species

College

Life Sciences

Department

Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Abstract

Many plants undergo polyploidization events throughout their history, meaning their genome doubles1; the goal of this project was to identify how these polyploidization events lead to changes in gene expression on a nucleotide level. Polyploidization events provide raw material to be acted upon by natural selection, allowing evolution to occur. Now with four copies of a gene instead of two, mutations can occur or expression levels can change without too great an influence on the plants well-being. This project examines factors relating to changes in gene expression between subgenomes after a polyploidization event among different cotton species. We first hypothesized that the expression bias was caused by insertions or deletions in the promoter region of the genes, meaning the copy of the gene on the subgenome that is less expressed will have more insertions and deletions in its promoter. By understanding expression bias, we can better understand how evolution affects plants after polyploidization events.

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