Title: Molecular physiology and evolutionary analysis of the main proteins of neuroendocrine and reproductive control from most representative marine invertebrates.
Abstract: Vertebrates and most charismatic invertebrate species are the focus of the investigations, followed by commercial important species, leaving aside the rest of the species. Due to this, there are large information gaps regarding the function and evolution of proteins involved in various physiological processes. Our research group has analyzed transcriptomes from at least one representative species from groups such as Porifera, Mollusca and Artropoda, besides the available sequences from other invertebrate and vertebrate species in GenBank database. Neuroendocrine and reproductive control are present in all animal species, since sponges to humans. Transcriptomic analysis facilitate identification from these proteins in less studied invertebrate animal species. Our research group found more than 100 proteins involved in reproduction control, and more than 50 proteins involved in neuroendocrine control. In this sense we trace the evolutionary history of some proteins as vitellogenin and vitellogenin receptor, among others, from reproductive control since Porifera to vertebrates. Whereas from neuroendocrine control we found several of these proteins in Porifera Haliclona caerulea, at least 10 of them never reported in this phylum. Until 90´s neuropeptides were thought to be absent in sponges due to their lack of a nervous system. These results elucidate the origin of these peptides in parallel with the origin of the first animal species. The evolutionary story of these proteins is particular from each one of them. Only some of them are highly conserved throughout the evolutionary chain, such as mago nashi, vitelline membrane outer layer, maternal Embryonic Leucine zipper Kinase, and strawberry notch, from reproductive control; and bursicon, glycoprotein hormone, and neuropeptide Y, from neuroendocrine control. The evolutionary story and protein characterization studies allows make individual expression and biochemical analysis for contamination bioindicators, diseases, reproductive analysis from for fisheries and aquaculture species, among others.
Bio: Research professor, Cátedras-CONACyT at Sea Sciencies Faculty, from the Sinaloa Autonomous University (Facultad de Ciencias del Mar, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa) since 2014. Research line: molecular physiology from marine invertebrates from ecological and commercial importance. Member of the National Research System (SNI, in Spanish), and the Sinaloa system of Researchers and Technologists (SSIT, in Spanish). Member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Acuacultura. Supervision of bachelor's, master's and PhD theses. Two divulgation articles, a book chapter. Publications in refereed journals and 10 publications in indexed journals. Evaluator in scientific journals, as well as evaluator of SSIT calls, and CONACYT projects.
Contact: lrjimenezgu@conacyt.mx