Nowick Lab

Just before Christmas, Barbara, Heidi, Alex and Yao defended their Doctoral theses. Barbara Bastos contributed to understanding the molecular evolution, gene dynamics and ecological drivers of thermoregulation in mammals. Heidi Roth worked on the molecular mechanisms shaping skylight processing neural circuits in insects. Alex Zemella found out how HSD17B2 regulates androgens and social behaviours in the ruff reproductive morphs. Yao-Chung Chen provided a comparative analysis of transposable elements and KRAB Zinc Finger Genes in human and non-human primates. Congratulations to all of you for fantastic work and scientific insights!

Tima’s work discovered co-expression network changes related to Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, she provides functional associations for several long non-coding RNAs in the human brain. Very nice work! Thanks also to Michael for providing an insightful network visualization!

This was a project we had already started in Leipzig with Stefano and Katja and finally finished in Berlin with Ama and Vladi and two great Master students, Amanda and Sebastian. We show that the transcription factor ZEB2 regulates different genes in humans compared to other apes, which makes it a strong candidate for being involve in the evolution of the human brain. Our paper is published in MBE.

Together with the group of Zbyszek Boratynski, we got two papers accepted almost on the same day. In one we investigated metabolic changes in rodents from the highly contaminated areas of Chornobyl, in the other one the evolution of genes related to thermoregulation.

The first two doctoral students from our group at FU Berlin defended. We are proud and congratulate Ama and Tima for their very fantastic work and very good defenses!

Jeong-Eun Lee (Ama):
Defense: 05.03.2025:
Titel der Dissertation: Regulatory divergence of ZEB2 in human brain evolution

Fatemeh Zebardast (Tima):
Defense: 04.04.2025
Titel der Dissertation: Exploring Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology Using Gene Co-Expression Networks: Insights into lncRNA and Protein-coding Genes Dysregulation

Our study „A single gene orchestrates androgen variation underlying male mating morphs in ruffs“ made in on the cover of Science!

Ruffs – a shore bird species – come in three different morphs that differ in appearance and behavior. “Independents,” have darker plumage and aggressively defend a small territory in mating arenas, “satellites” have lighter-colored plumage and court peacefully, while “faeder” morphs a hard to distinguish from female ruffs, allowing them to sneak into the mating arenas unnoticed. Using a combination of transcriptomics and molecular biology methods, we showed that an enzyme, which is encoded by a gene in a recently inverted genomic region, is responsible for regulating testosterone levels, underlying the differences in phenotype and mating of the morphs.

Our team was led by Clemens Küpper (Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence) with exceptional contributions from Alex Zemella, Jasmine Loveland and Vladimir Jovanovic. More information can be found in our press releases in German and English.

Our genomic study of rhesus macaques from Cayo Santiago in Puerto Rico “Estimating realized relatedness in free-ranging macaques by inferring identity-by-descent segments” has been published in PNAS. We show that utilizing information from identity-by-descent (IBD) segments, relatedness of individuals in natural population can be analyzed without prior knowledge on their pedigree, Revealing Hidden Genetic Ties. This work was lead by Prof. Anja Widdig from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, with major contributions from Annika Freudiger, Vladimir Jovanovic and Dr. Harad Ringbauer.

Yao’s paper on his new tool for the interaction of Transposable Elements (TEs) with genes, TEKRABber, is published as Reviewed Preprint, “Regulatory networks of KRAB zinc finger genes and transposable elements changed during human brain evolution and disease” in eLife. Having in mind that KRAB-ZNF transcription factor genes evolve very quickly in primates and that some KRAB-ZNF proteins might repress fast evolving TEs, Yao developed an R package for the comparative analysis of such interactions. He shows that there are indeed many human specific interactions, which might be relevant for human for the evolution and for diseases of the human brain.

Our manuscript has been accepted for publication in Ecology and Evolution. Congratulations to Baja and Vanessa!

Are you interested in provenience, human remains at FU and ethical considerations? We are discussing this in a new seminar series organized by Vanessa. It takes place Tuesdays at 5pm in the big lecture hall of the Zoology building (Koenigin-Luise-Strasse 1-3). You are invited to come, to listen to inspiring talks from us and guests and to discuss with us!

An interview with more information about Vanessa and our provenience project can be found here.