The goal of this research topic is to analyze the complete mitochondrial genomes of animal species belonging to various phyla. Species target are included in very different taxa ranging from sponges (Porifera) to marine mammals (Chordata). The sequencing of these genomes has already be done or is in progress according to a Next Generation Sequencing approach based on Illumina and/or PacBio technologies. The reads have been/will be assembled through a custom pipeline hosted in the computer system facility available at the Department of Comparative Biomedicine and food Science of Padua University. The assembled and annotated new mitogenomes will be compared and analyzed together with the mitogenomic data already available in public data banks. Several comparative and evolutionary mitochondrial genomic issues (.e.g. macrostructural and microstructural evolution of mitogenomes) will be investigated through state of the art bioinformatic software. Mitochondrial phylogenomics will be also explored with the new data (tens to hundred genomes) at different taxonomic scale. The role of different mitochondrial genes as reference markers for molecular identification of animal species will be also studied. As a whole, this project is strongly focused on a bioinformatic approach to the study of animal mitogenomes.

Five publications related to the Research Topic for the candidate interview: 

1. Boore JL. 1999. Animal mitochondrial genomes. Nucleic Acids Res. 27(8):1767–1780.
2. Boore JL. 2006. The use of genome-level characters for phylogenetic reconstruction. Trends Ecol Evol. 21(8):439–446.
3. Bernt M, Braband A, Schierwater B, Stadler PF. 2013. Genetic aspects of mitochondrial genome evolution. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 69(2):328–338.
4. Cameron SL. 2014. Insect mitochondrial genomics: implications for evolution and phylogeny. Annu Rev Entomol. 59(1):95–117.
5. Satoh TP, Miya M, Mabuchi K, NishidaM. 2016. Structure and variation of the mitochondrial genome of fishes. BMC Genomics 17(1):719.

Contact person

Prof. Enrico Massimiliano Negrisolo

Department of Comparative biomedicine and food science
University of Padova
tel.: +39-049-8272614
e-mail: enrico.negrisolo@unipd.it