Evolution at the Nucleotide Level

Rapid Evolution of HIV/SIV and Microsatellites in Candida albicans

Matthew D. Pagel

NSCORT/Exobiology Fellow

Christopher Wills Lab

Department of Biology, University of California - San Diego

HIV/SIV Phylogenetic Trees

A Model for Rapid Evolution

Sample Sequence Alignment

HIV/SIV Env gene Neighbor-

Joining Tree(from Yellow Fever, Black Goddess

by C. Wills)

Neighbor-Joining Tree of Env gene of HIV/SIV - NCBI/Los Alamos Complete Sequences

Pol Neighbor-Joining Tree

HIV1

HIV2

Neighbor-Joining

Tree of Gag Gene of HIV/SIV

NJ Tree of Gag after Unverified Sequences

Removed

Cloning of Candida albicans genes involved in pathogenicity

Plasmid Construction of Erk1

Microsatellite Slippage Mutations (Glutamine)

The Genetic Code--The Translation of mRNA to Amino Acids--

Recombination-Mediated Plasmid Construction

Action of Restriction Enzymes(Eco RI example clipped from Molecular Cell Biology CD-Rom)

Plasmid Constructionvia Restriction Digest

Blue/White Screen

Future Steps

• Site-directed mutagenesis producing variant microsatellite length

• Re-insertion of plasmid into knockout strains

• Analysis of morphological form (hyphal)

Acknowledgements

Chris Wills

Nikki Freed

Dave Metzgar

Sol Guiterrez

Hattie Oswald

Lois Lane

Bill Baity

Carlos Flores, Vincent Starai, Carlos Peralta, & William Engels

The NSCORT/Exobiology Program