BPB 130

Dr. Patrick FerreeProfessor of Biology, Department of Natural SciencesPitzer College and Scripps College Claremont Host: Stacey HanlonChromosome-killing chromosomes: understanding the molecular basis of extreme genome conflict In this talk, Dr. Ferree will highlight work from thier group aimed to understand how a selfish B chromosome causes genome elimination and sex reversal in the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis, in order to achieve super-Mendelian inheritance.About Dr. Ferree: Dr. Ferree earned a PhD in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Cruz, working in the lab of William Sullivan. They studied the cell biology of Wolbachia in the germ line tissues of Drosophila melanogaster. As a postdoc in the laboratory of Daniel Barbash at Cornell, Ferree investigated the genetic basis of hybrid incompatibility between two fruit fly species. They found that a species-specific region of heterochromatin from D. melanogaster causes hybrid lethality when present in hybrids containing maternal cytoplasm from D. simulans. As a faculty member at the Claremont Colleges, Ferree studied several different systems, including lethal effects of circularized sex chromosomes, host-symbiont interactions underlying male killing caused by Spiroplasma bacteria in the fruit fly, and most recently, the molecular basis of genome elimination caused by a selfish B chromosome in the jewel wasp, Nasonia vitripennis.PublicationPSRs: Selfish chromosomes that manipulate reproductive development (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S108495212400020X)