Investigating the temporal and spatial dynamics of somatic transposition events in fruitflies and mice. (360G-Wellcome-099681_Z_12_A)

Ever since the remarkable experiments of early neuro-anatomists such as Santiago Ramon y Cajal we have appreciated the unmatched diversity in shape and structure of neurons within an organism1. In addition, current efforts to study the brain structures of large cohorts of humans reveal a similar degree of diversity between the brains of individuals2. Transposons, mobile genetic elements, have been shown to actively "jump" within the neural genomes, makingthem diverse mosaics3-6. Somatic transposition events might be the source thatintroduces individuality and diversity into a pool of otherwise genetically identical cells7. The goal of this project is to further our understanding of somatic transposition in neurons of fruitflies and mice, and to unravel novel molecular principles that underlie behavioural diversity. I propose to first develop a novel method to detect somatic insertion site variants (SISV) between two different tissue samples (see appendix 1), second, to establish tools to study the temporal and spatial dynamics of SISVs in fruitflies and mice, and third to relate SISV patterns with distinct patterns in behaviour. The results will help identify key SISVs that might be responsible for the anatomical and behavioural diversity in insects and vertebrates.