Sensory gene families evolution in mosquitoes
Single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq on mousquito's brain
Mosquitoes possess incredible sensory abilities resulting from sensory gene families divercification (i.e., duplications). These extraordinary performances are used in host seeking behaviour to assess the necessary blood meal. Howerver, males only feed on flowers while females will have a blood meal giving them enough energy to lay their eggs.
How evolved the different behaviour between males and females? Are the sensory integration the same? And how gene duplication patterns evolved?
To investigate these differences of gene expression and behaviour between males and females I am using a combination of bioinformatics, chromatine accessibility assays (ATAC-seq) and transcriptomics (single cell RNA-seq) on males and females brains from various species.