Zebrafish are a model organism still on the rise: a small vertebrate with a short generation time. However, lab strains have undergone severe bottlenecks and inbreeding, with potential impacts on reproducibility and on adaptation studies.
We investigate population genetic parameters through individual genome resequencing across five strains: AB, TU, T5D, MA, and a recently sourced mostly wild population. We want to understand properties and challenges related to domestication as lab strains, and specifically focus on the effect on epigenetic regulators. As mediators of plasticity, epigenetic regulators should be disproportionally affected by variable versus highly controlled conditions.
Project team:
James Ord, Sitaram Rajaraman, Irene Adrian-Kalchhauser
