PI: Eric
S.
Haag
Associate
Professor
Director, BEES
Concentration Area,
BISI Graduate Program
B.
A.,
Oberlin
College, 1990
Ph.D.,
Indiana University,
Bloomington 1997
postdoc, Univ.
of Wisconsin, Madison
Telephone:
(301)
405-8534
Office: Biology/Psychology
Room 0256
Lab: Biology/Psychology Room
0245
Email: ehaag@umd.edu
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The
Haag Lab, September,
2009
Back row (L to R):
Eric Haag, Alana Doty, Onyi Eke, Gavin
Woodruff. Middle Row: Qinwen Liu, Zebib
Abraham, Cristel Thomas
Supine in front: Joe Ross
Not pictured: Dorothy Johnson, Annie Alvarez (photo
by Octopod)
Haag
Lab People
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C.
briggsae
hermaphrodite (above) and male (left)
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Research Interests
The Haag laboratory
studies the developmental genetics of evolutionary change in
animals.
Of particular interest to us are reproductive adaptations whose
evolution required major developmental novelties. Currently we
focus on the evolution of self-fertile hermaphroditism in
nematodes.
We use the model nematode Caenorhabditis
elegans as a starting point, which confers several
advantages.
First, sister species of C. elegans have different reproductive
modes that are based on differences in sex determination in a single
tissue--the germ line. Second,
C. elegans sex determination has been subjected to intense genetic,
molecular, and biochemical investigation, which provides a wealth of
potential
mechanisms for investigation. Third, many of the tools
available to C. elegans researchers are applicable to its
relatives
as well, such as classical genetics, RNA interference-mediated reverse
genetics, and even complete genome sequence.
We seek to identify
the molecular and genetic mechanisms that distinguish the sex
determination
of androdioecious (hermaphrodite/male) species from that of
gonochoristic
(male/female) species of worms. We also are interested in the
convergent evolution of selfing, the
evolutionary
forces that drive the rapid evolution of sex determination even in the
absence of overt phenotypic change, and the molecular and genomic
responses
to these forces.
Work
in the lab includes
the following
projects:
- classical
and reverse genetic analysis of sex determination in other Caenorhabditis
species, especially C. briggsae
- population-level
molecular evolution studies of rapidly diverging sex determination
genes
- basic
and comparative characterization of key proteins of the nematode sex
determination
pathway
- genome-level consequences of mating system evolution
in Caenorhabditis
species
- empirical and theoretical aspects of compensatory
evolution in the evolution of development
Feel free to
contact Eric if you are
interested in participating in this work. Our lab
(a.k.a. The Palace of Worm Sex) is on the ground floor of the Biology/Psychology
Building.
At left, a
self-fertile XX C. briggsae
fem-3(nm63) deletion
mutant. This
phenotype (or
lack therof) differs
from the
self-sterility seen in the
equivalent C. elegans fem-3
mutant.
Recent Publications:
Haag,
ES and Doty, AV
(2005) Sex determination across evolution: connecting the
dots (“Primer”). PLoS Biology
3: e21-24. PDF
Haag, ES and Ackerman, AD (2005) Intraspecific variation in fem-3 and tra-2, two rapidly coevolving
nematode
sex-determining genes. Gene
349: 35-42. PDF
Haag, ES and Molla,
MN (2005) Compensatory
evolution of interacting gene products through multifunctional
intermediates. Evolution 59:
1620-32 PDF
Dowload
Synth_Pop code
Haag, ES (2005)
The evolution of nematode sex
determination: C. elegans as
a reference point for comparative biology. In Wormbook:
Online review of C. elegans biology, ed. The C. elegans Research
Community. PDF
Haag, ES and Pilgrim,
D. (2005) Harnessing Caenorhabditis
genomics for
evolutionary developmental biology. Curr. Genomics 6: 579-88.
Hill, RC, Carvalho,
C, Salogiannis, J, Schlager, B,
Pilgrim, D, and Haag, ES (2006) Genetic flexibility in the
convergent evolution of hermaphroditism in Caenorhabditis nematodes. Dev. Cell 10: 531-38 PDF Suppl. Mats.
Haag, ES
(2007)
Compensatory vs. pseudocompensatory
evolution in molecular and developmental interactions. Genetica
129: 45-55. PDF
Haag, ES,
Chamberlin, H, Coghlan, A, Fitch, DHA, Peters, AD,
and Schulenburg, H (2007) Caenorhabditis evolution: if they all look alike, you
aren't
looking hard enough. Trends
Genet. 23: 101-04. PDF
Kelleher, DF, de
Carvalho, CE, Doty AV, Layton M, Cheng AT, Mathies LD, Pilgrim D,
Haag ES (2008) Comparative genetics of sex determination:
Masculinizing
mutations in Caenorhabditis
briggsae. Genetics 178: 1415-29. PDF
Suppl.
Mats.
Barriere, A,
Yang, S-P, Pekarek, E, Thomas, CG, Haag, ES, and Ruvinsky, I
(2009) Detecting heterozygosity in shotgun genome assemblies:
Lessons
from obligately outcrossing nematodes. Genome Research 19: 470-480. PDF
Hill, RC and Haag,
ES (2009) A sensitized genetic background reveals evolution near
the terminus of the Caenorhabditis
germline sex determination pathway. Evolution & Development 11:
333-342 PDF
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