Data Science Special Lecture-3（2023）

Date & Time: Wednesday, 1 November 11:00-12:30
Place: Rethink Materials Science Seminar Hall and Online(webex)
Language: English

Lecturer: Chikara Furusawa (Professor, RIKEN, Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research Universal Biology Institute, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo)

Title: Toward Prediction and Control of Microbial Evolution: Analysis of
Phenotypic Constraints in Laboratory Evolution

Abstract:
Biological systems change their state in order to adapt and evolve in response to changing environmental conditions. However, despite recognizing the importance of clarifying the adaptive and evolutionary capabilities of organisms, research on the evolvability and plasticity of organisms remains at a qualitative level. To clarify how evolutionary processes are constrained in high-dimensional phenotypic and genotypic space, we conducted laboratory evolution under various
(～100) stressful environments and analyzed phenotypic and genomic sequence changes [1]. These comprehensive analyses revealed that changes in expression are restricted to low-dimensional dynamics, while diverse genomic changes contribute to similar phenotypic changes. Based on these results, we would like to discuss the nature of phenotypic plasticity and constraints in bacterial evolution [2], as well as possible strategies to predict and control evolutionary dynamics.

[1] T. Maeda et al, Nature Comm., 11:5970 (2020)
[2] C. Furusawa and K. Kaneko, Phys. Rev. E, 97(4-1):042410 (2018)