Dinoflagellates have very large genomes. So much so that the smallest dinoflagellates genomes recorded are half the size of the human genome, whereas the largest are almost 10 times bigger! We don’t know much about them. Not even how many genes or how they are arranged or regulated. Moreover, how DNA is packaged and organized into chromosomes appears to be different than in the rest of eukaryotes. Our goal is to understand better the composition, organization and evolution of these enigmatic genomes.
We use the dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina as our pet model to approach some of these questions but also make use of molecular data from many other species for comparative analysis. Because O. marina represents a lineage that branched off the main dinoflagellate clade early, it shows traits that can help understand the macroevolutionary changes that we see in the so-called “core dinoflagellates”
Oxyrrhis marina Genome Sequencing Project
We are currently sequencing the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of O. marina using a combination of long- and short-read sequencing (Illumina and PacBio). We have recently completed a draft assembly and annotation of the mitochondrial genome and are advancing towards a complete nuclear genome.
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