Meeting Abstract

S1-1.2  Thursday, Jan. 3  Challenges and opportunities in comparative reptilian genomics GLENN, Travis C.*; JONES, Kenneth L.; SAWYER, Roger H.; GREENWOLD, Matthew J.; CRAWFORD, Nicholas G.; Universities of Georgia & South Carolina; University of Georgia; University of South Carolina; University of South Carolina; Boston University glenn@srel.edu

Reptiles are the sister group to mammals and thus provide unique insight into mammalian genome evolution. Reptiles are, however, an ancient paraphyletic assemblage of organisms. Divergence between major lineages is often much more substantial than that observed for similar taxonomic labels in birds and mammals. Thus, there is no single reptile model species to address the needs of comparative genomic studies. Additionally, few laboratory-reared colonies have been established for reptiles. We are using a variety of approaches to elucidate the genomes of the green anole Anolis carolinensis, American alligators Alligator mississippiensis , and other reptiles. We are currently developing techniques for comparative transcriptomics which are facilitated by massively parallel sequencing on the 454 genome sequencers. We will show that an integrated approach using knowledge of organismal biology and development coupled with the latest advances in biotechnology and bioinformatics yields new insights into some very new and very old questions.