Sankoff
Comparative Genomics.
Recurrent processes in genome evolution focusing on the processes and consequences of inversion, translocation, transposition, duplication, chromosome fission/fusion etc.; from the points of view of modeling, formalization, simulation, inference. Topics include:
- the inference of evolutionary history using combinatorial
optimization to calculate various genomic distances - a field in which
there has been enormous progress over the past two years. In
multichromosomal genomes, this applies to synteny (unordered)
data as well as gene order data.
- extensions to phylogeny of the above work, including the recent
results of Caprara, and the new techniques of breakpoint analysis
- the statistical models of translocation growing out of the 1984
discoveries of Nadeau and Taylor on the human-mouse comparison.
Many of the open problems in this area have been solved and new
questions are arising from detailed mapping efforts and the widening
scope of the field. Particular attention to algorithms for conserved
segment identification and rates of interchromosomal versus
intrachromosomal exchanges.
- genome duplication, a hot topic these days, in vertebrates, cereals,
yeast, etc. as a major mechanism for rapid punctual evolution. This
involves modeling, statistical analysis, and algorithms for genome
halving.