[Seminar] "Harpoons and cartwheels: from heterotrophic protist organism discovery to evolutionary cell biology" by Dr. Yana Eglit

Speaker: Dr. Yana Eglit, the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva [website]

Title: Harpoons and cartwheels: from heterotrophic protist organism discovery to evolutionary cell biology

Abstract:

A major standing question in cell biology is evolution of the centriole. As the last eukaryote common ancestor was almost certainly a flagellate with a fully developed set of basal bodies, non-flagellate (and non-centriolar) extant eukaryotes provide an opportunity to search for reductive evolution of the centriole. Eukaryotic diversity is overwhelmingly protistan. Characterising novel protist diversity contributes not only to exploring phylogenetic diversity, but to better understand the evolutionary history of eukaryotic cells. Historically understudied, heterotrophic protists -- in particular those from marine sediments -- have been a rich source of major novel phylogenetic diversity. I will highlight some findings from recent organism discovery (and re-discovery) and cultivation work, including phylogenetically distinct organisms such as Meteora and Hemimastigophora, each featuring unusual cell features, as well as fairly intricate feeding behaviours. Lastly, we are using bioinformatics and expansion microscopy to search for traces of ancestral centrioles among a selection of non-flagellate eukaryotes. I will show some early results from searching for a key structural protein of the centriole.