300337 SE Trends in plant genome evolution: Polyploidy (2021W)

This course offers the students the possibility to get acquainted with modern literature and recent views on types, rate and mechanisms of polyploid formation as well as genome restructuring accompanying and following polyploidisation. The published materials that will be discussed during this course will focus mostly on incidence and mechanisms leading to polyploidisation as well as on important processes operating on the level of gene, chromosome and genome in different time points after polyploidisation. The course shall help the students to understand and appreciate different aspects of genome evolution and their role in plant evolution by providing in depth modern view of polyploidy in plants.
Aims:
- focus on polyploidy in plants, but other groups of organisms can also be discussed if of interest
- to learn and understand the processes leading to polyploid formation and establishment.
- to discuss the evolution of polyploid genomes, with special emphasis on the repetitive DNA, and chromosomal rearrangements
- to understand the role and importance of polyploids in plant diversification and speciation
- to get acquainted with the use of state-of-the-art next generation sequencing to analyze the polyploid genomes and to compare their evolution with diploid progenitors