Institut Jacques Monod
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Evolution and genetics

Virginie COURTIER-ORGOGOZO

Our research focuses on the mutations responsible for evolutionary change.

We use a combination of different approaches to identify the mutations responsible for evolutionary change and to reconstruct past evolutionary events. We hope that our work will provide new and rigorous data to better understand our evolution, past and future.

Keywords: evolution, species, Drosophila, genome, genetics, ecology, bioadhesive, development, QTL mapping

+33 (0)157278043     virginie.courtier(at)ijm.fr     @Biol4Ever     https://courtier.ijm.fr/

Research

Our research investigates the mutations responsible for evolutionary changes.

Since Darwin, research in evolutionary biology tries to understand biodiversity – the great number of species in nature, each with features so well adapted to its environment. In our current understanding of evolution, the genes and the mutations responsible for phenotypic differences have no distinctive features: mutations occur randomly and a few of them happen to spread in populations through selection and chance. However, phenotypic evolution may not be totally random in terms of genetics. There might be rules to be discovered about the mutations underlying natural evolution.

We are using a combination of various approaches to identify the mutations responsible for evolutionary changes and to reconstruct past evolutionary events. We hope that our work will provide new and rigorous data to better understand our evolution, past and future.

 

EVOLUTION OF FLY GLUE (PI: V. COURTIER-ORGOGOZO)

 

At the end of the larval stage, Drosophila larvae produce a proteinaceous glue that allows the animal to adhere to a substrate for several days during metamorphosis. We aim to use the powerful genetic tools of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to explore the molecular basis for fly glue adhesion. We want to identify the genes involved in glue adhesion and understand how they have changed during evolution so that the glue can stick to various substrates in diverse environments. We developed a new assay to quantify Drosophila glue adhesiveness and we plan to measure adhesion of glue mutants and to compare adhesion between different Drosophila melanogaster populations and Drosophila species.

 

 

 

 

EVOLUTION OF LEFT-RIGHT SIZE ASYMMETRY (PI: MICHAEL LANG)

 

How left-right asymmetries in organ size develop remains a mystery. Drosophila pachea has evolved a unique left-right asymmetry in genitalia lobes. No left-right size asymmetry has been described in D. melanogaster. We are trying to uncover the mechanisms that triger asymmetric lobe development and the role of these asymmetric lobes during copulation. We use a stock of Drosophila pachea containing spontaneous symmetric mutant males and we perform micro-scale laser removal of lobe bristles and micro-scale surgery of lobes. We are also examining left-right asymmetries in behavior and morphology in species closely related to D. pachea, in order to understand how left-right asymmetry in lobe size evolved in D. pachea.

 

 

 

 

 

EVOLUTION OF GENITALIA (PI: V. COURTIER-ORGOGOZO)

We wish to understand how the morphology of genital organs change rapidly during evolution. We combine developmental studies, genomics, genetics, quantitative genetics, population genetics, microCT scans, laser microsurgery and behavioral experiments to understand how genes and cellular mechanisms modulate organ shape in a subtle and precise way, and how this can affect reproduction and long-term evolution. We examine the following genital organs: hypandrial bristles, ventral branches and posterior lobes.

 

 

 

 

 

THE ORIGIN OF COVID-19

Click here for more details.

 

 

DATABASES

 

Gephebase contains a list of all the genes and mutations that have been found to be responsible for phenotypic differences (morphological, physiological and behavioral traits) between populations or strains for pluricellular organisms. A preliminary list was deposited in Dryad in 2013 and the full open access website is available here

 

FlyPhenomics provides a compilation of the phenotypes that have been reported to differ between at least two species of the D. melanogaster subgroup. More than 150 morphological, physiological and behavioral differences have been described between 1919 and 2006.
associated paper: Orgogozo V, Stern DL, How different are recently diverged species? More than 150 phenotypic differences have been reported for the D. melanogaster species subgroup. Fly 2009 Mar-Apr;3(2):117.

FlyPNS :

description of the embryonic and larval peripheral nervous system of D. melanogaster.
made with Wesley Grueber.
associated paper:  Orgogozo V, Grueber WB, FlyPNS, a database of the Drosophila embryonic and larval peripheral nervous system. BMC Dev Biol. 2005 Feb 17; 5(1):4.

Members

Group Leader:

Virginie COURTIER-ORGOGOZO

Directrice de Recherche 2e classe

Téléphone : +33 (0)157278043, +33 (0)157278087

virginie.courtier(at)ijm.fr

 

Members:

Manon MONIER, PhD student

manon.monier(at)ijm.fr

Arrived in March 2020 for her M2

Evolution of Drosophila glue.

 

Alexis LALOUETTE, University lecturer

alexis.lalouette(at)ijm.fr

Arrived in 2011

Development and evolution of lobe shape in the D. melanogaster subgroup.

 

Isabelle NUEZ, Research Engineer CNRS

isabelle.nuez(at)ijm.fr

Arrived in 2011

Evolution of genitalia bristles in D. santomea. Evolution of Drosophila glue.

 

Jean-Noël LORENZI, Research Engineer CNRS

jeannoel.lorenzi(at)gmail.com

Arrived in Sept 2021

Elucidating the proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.

 

Roshan Kumar VIJENDRAVARMA, CNRS CR researcher

Arrived in Jan 2022
Developmental instability and sexual selection, adaptation to chronic malnutrition during development.

Selected Publications

van Helden, J., Butler, C. D., Achaz, G., Canard, B., Casane, D., Claverie, J. M., … & Halloy, J. (2021). An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. The Lancet.    Featured in several newspapers including   il Fatto Quotidiano Daily Mail ThePrint   

Peluffo AE, Hamdani M, Vargas-Valderrama A, David JR, Mallard F, Graner F, Courtier-Orgogozo V. A morphological trait involved in reproductive isolation between Drosophila sister species is sensitive to temperature. Ecology and Evolution 11(12), 7492-7506. doi: 10.1002/ece3.7580 DRYAD Supp Data BioRxiv 

Borne, F., Prigent, S.R., Molet, M., Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2021) Drosophila glue protects from predation. Proc. R. Soc. B. 288: 20210088. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0088 DRYAD Supp Data  BioRxiv
Actualité CNRS

Lefèvre, B.M., Catté, D., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Lang, M. (2021) Male genital lobe morphology affects the chance to copulate in Drosophila pachea. BMC Ecol Evo 21, 23. doi: 10.1186/s12862-021-01759-z PDF

Rode N, Courtier-Orgogozo V, Débarre F. (2020) Can a population targeted by a CRISPR-based homing gene drive be rescued? G3. 10 (9), 3403-3415. doi: 10.1534/g3.120.401484 BioRxiv

Courtier-Orgogozo V, Danchin A, Gouyon PH, Boëte C (2020) Evaluating the Probability of CRISPR-based Gene Drive Contaminating Another Species. Evolutionary Applications 00:1–18. doi: 10.1111/eva.12939 BioRxiv PDF

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Borne F, Kovalev A, Gorb S, Courtier-Orgogozo V (2020) The glue produced by Drosophila melanogaster for pupa adhesion is universal. Journal of Experimental Biology 223: jeb220608 doi: 10.1242/jeb.220608 Published 23 April 2020. DRYAD BioRxiv Featured in “inside JEB“. PDF
Passion Entomologie

Courtier-Orgogozo V, Martin A (2020) The Coding Loci of Evolution and Domestication: Current Knowledge and Implications for Bio-Inspired Genome Editing. Journal of Experimental Biology 223: jeb208934. Published 7 February 2020. doi: 10.1242/jeb.208934  PDF  HAL

Prigent S, Lang M, Nagy O, Acurio A, Matamoro-Vidal A, Courtier-Orgogozo and David JR (2020) Field collections reveal that São Tomé is the Afrotropical island with the highest diversity of drosophilid flies (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. doi:10.1080/00379271.2019.1703814 PDF HAL

Courtier-Orgogozo V, Martin A, Arnoult L, Prigent S, Wiltgen S (2020) Gephebase, a Database of Genotype-Phenotype Relationships for natural and domesticated variation in Eukaryotes. Nucleic Acid Research 48(D1), D696-D703. doi:10.1093/nar/gkz796 PDF HAL BioRxiv

Gavin Rice, Jean R. David, Yoshitaka Kamimura, John P. Masly, Alistair P. Mcgregor, Olga Nagy, Stéphane Noselli, Maria Daniela Santos Nunes, Patrick O’Grady, Ernesto Sánchez-Herrero, Mark L. Siegal, Masanori J. Toda*, Mark Rebeiz*, Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo*, Amir Yassin* (*: corresponding authors) (2019). Revised nomenclature and atlas of the male terminalia of Drosophila melanogaster. Fly. doi:10.1080/19336934.2019.1653733 PDF HAL preprints 

All the publications

Publications since 2017

Elkin, J., Martin, A., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Santos, M. E. (2023). Analysis of the genetic loci of pigment pattern evolution in vertebrates. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12952
Vijendravarma, R. K. (2022). Diverse strategies that animals use to deter intraspecific predation. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.14129
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & de Ribera, F. A. (2022). SARS-CoV-2 infection at the Huanan seafood market. Environmental Research, 214(Pt 1), 113702. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.113702
Lefèvre, B. M., Mienanzambi, S., & Lang, M. (2022). Developmental timing of Drosophila pachea pupae is robust to temperature changes. Journal of Thermal Biology, 106, 103232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtherbio.2022.103232
Gammeren, S. van, Lang, M., Rücklin, M., & Schilthuizen, M. (2022). No evidence for asymmetric sperm deposition in a species with asymmetric male genitalia. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.03.19.485007
Tandonnet, S., Haq, M., Turner, A., Grana, T., Paganopoulou, P., Adams, S., Dhawan, S., Kanzaki, N., Nuez, I., Félix, M.-A., & Pires-daSilva, A. (2022). De Novo Genome Assembly of Auanema Melissensis, a Trioecious Free-Living Nematode. Journal of Nematology, 54(1), 20220059. https://doi.org/10.2478/jofnem-2022-0059
Lefèvre, B. M., Delvigne, M., Vidal, J., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Lang, M. (2022). A novel mechanism for left-right asymmetry establishment involving tissue remodeling and MyoID. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.16.476383
Suvorov, A., Kim, B. Y., Wang, J., Armstrong, E. E., Peede, D., D’Agostino, E. R. R., Price, D. K., Waddell, P., Lang, M., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., David, J. R., Petrov, D., Matute, D. R., Schrider, D. R., & Comeault, A. A. (2022). Widespread introgression across a phylogeny of 155 Drosophila genomes. Current Biology: CB, 32(1), 111-123.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.10.052
Borne, F., Kulathinal, R. J., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2021). Glue Genes Are Subjected to Diverse Selective Forces during Drosophila Development. Genome Biology and Evolution, 13(12), evab248. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evab248
van Helden, J., Butler, C. D., Achaz, G., Canard, B., Casane, D., Claverie, J.-M., Colombo, F., Courtier, V., Ebright, R. H., Graner, F., Leitenberg, M., Morand, S., Petrovsky, N., Segreto, R., Decroly, E., & Halloy, J. (2021). An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Lancet (London, England), 398(10309), 1402–1404. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02019-5
Peluffo, A. E., Hamdani, M., Vargas-Valderrama, A., David, J. R., Mallard, F., Graner, F., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2021). A morphological trait involved in reproductive isolation between Drosophila sister species is sensitive to temperature. Ecology and Evolution, 11(12), 7492–7506. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7580
Borne, F., Prigent, S. R., Molet, M., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2021). Drosophila glue protects from predation. Proceedings. Biological Sciences, 288(1947), 20210088. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0088
Lefèvre, B. M., Catté, D., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Lang, M. (2021). Male genital lobe morphology affects the chance to copulate in Drosophila pachea. BMC Ecology and Evolution, 21(1), 23. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-021-01759-z
Rode, N. O., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Débarre, F. (2020). Can a Population Targeted by a CRISPR-Based Homing Gene Drive Be Rescued? G3 (Bethesda, Md.), 10(9), 3403–3415. https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.120.401484
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Danchin, A., Gouyon, P.-H., & Boëte, C. (2020). Evaluating the probability of CRISPR-based gene drive contaminating another species. Evolutionary Applications, 13(8), 1888–1905. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.12939
Borne, F., Kovalev, A., Gorb, S., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2020). The glue produced by Drosophila melanogaster for pupa adhesion is universal. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 223(Pt 8), jeb220608. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.220608
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Arnoult, L., Prigent, S. R., Wiltgen, S., & Martin, A. (2020). Gephebase, a database of genotype-phenotype relationships for natural and domesticated variation in Eukaryotes. Nucleic Acids Research, 48(D1), D696–D703. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz796
Prigent, S. R., Lang, M., Nagy, O., Acurio, A., Matamoro-Vidal, A., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & David, J. R. (2020). Field collections reveal that São Tomé is the Afrotropical island with the highest diversity of drosophilid flies (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Annales de La Société Entomologique de France (N.S.), 56(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00379271.2019.1703814
Rode, N. O., Estoup, A., Bourguet, D., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Débarre, F. (2019). Population management using gene drive: molecular design, models of spread dynamics and assessment of ecological risks. Conservation Genetics, 20(4), 671–690. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-019-01165-5
Acurio, A. E., Rhebergen, F. T., Paulus, S., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Lang, M. (2019). Repeated evolution of asymmetric genitalia and right-sided mating behavior in the Drosophila nannoptera species group. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 19(1), 109. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1434-z
Pondeville, E., Puchot, N., Lang, M., Cherrier, F., Schaffner, F., Dauphin-Villemant, C., Bischoff, E., & Bourgouin, C. (2019). Evolution of sexually-transferred steroids and mating-induced phenotypes in Anopheles mosquitoes. Scientific Reports, 9(1), 4669. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41094-4
Da Lage, J.-L., Thomas, G. W. C., Bonneau, M., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2019). Evolution of salivary glue genes in Drosophila species. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 19(1), 36. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1364-9
Nagy, O., Nuez, I., Savisaar, R., Peluffo, A. E., Yassin, A., Lang, M., Stern, D. L., Matute, D. R., David, J. R., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2018). Correlated Evolution of Two Copulatory Organs via a Single cis-Regulatory Nucleotide Change. Current Biology: CB, 28(21), 3450-3457.e13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.08.047
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Morizot, B., & Boëte, C. (2017). Using CRISPR-based gene drive for agriculture pest control. EMBO Reports, 18(9), 1481. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201744822
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., Morizot, B., & Boëte, C. (2017). Agricultural pest control with CRISPR-based gene drive: time for public debate. EMBO Reports, 18(6), 878–880. https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201744205

 

Preprint since 2017

Elkin, J., Martin, A., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Santos, M. E. (2022). Meta-analysis of the genetic loci of pigment pattern evolution in vertebrates. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.01.474697
Rice, G., David, J. R., Kamimura, Y., Masly, J. P., Mcgregor, A. P., Nagy, O., Noselli, S., Nunes, M. D. S., O’Grady, P., Sánchez-Herrero, E., Siegal, M. L., Toda, M. J., Rebeiz, M., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Yassin, A. (2019). A standardized nomenclature and atlas of the male terminalia of Drosophila melanogaster. Fly, 13(1–4), 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336934.2019.1653733
Matamoro-Vidal, A., Tully, T., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2018). Robustness of bristle number to temperature and genetic background varies with bristle type and is regulated by miR-9a. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/295485
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Martin, A. (2017). Predicting the genetic loci of past evolution. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/205153

 

Review since 2017

Monier, M., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2022). Drosophila Glue: A Promising Model for Bioadhesion. Insects, 13(8), 734. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13080734
Kitano, J., Ishikawa, A., Ravinet, M., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2022). Genetic basis of speciation and adaptation: from loci to causative mutations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1855), 20200503. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0503
Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Martin, A. (2020). The coding loci of evolution and domestication: current knowledge and implications for bio-inspired genome editing. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 223(Pt Suppl 1), jeb208934. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.208934
Rice, G., David, J. R., Kamimura, Y., Masly, J. P., Mcgregor, A. P., Nagy, O., Noselli, S., Nunes, M. D. S., O’Grady, P., Sánchez-Herrero, E., Siegal, M. L., Toda, M. J., Rebeiz, M., Courtier-Orgogozo, V., & Yassin, A. (2019). A standardized nomenclature and atlas of the male terminalia of Drosophila melanogaster. Fly, 13(1–4), 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336934.2019.1653733

 

Book chapter sincer 2017

Martin, A., & Courtier-Orgogozo, V. (2017). Morphological Evolution Repeatedly Caused by Mutations in Signaling Ligand Genes. In T. Sekimura & H. F. Nijhout (Eds.), Diversity and Evolution of Butterfly Wing Patterns: An Integrative Approach (pp. 59–87). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4956-9_4

Theses

Alexandre Peluffo, Flora Borne

ongoing : Manon Monier

Collaborations

International

  1. Andolfatto, Columbia University, USA
  2. Martin, Georges Washington University, USA
  3. Matute, Chicago University, USA
  4. Santos, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  5. Schilthuizen, Leiden, Netherlands
  6. D.L. Stern, Janelia farm, Ashburn, USA

 

National

  1. Danchin, Paris
  2. Graner, Université Paris 7, Paris
  3. Montagné and T. Chertemps, Université Paris 6, Paris
  4. Morizot, Marseille
  5. Rode, Montpellier
  6. Wiltgen, Montpellier

GRANTS – FUNDING

Labex “Who am I?”

CNRS MITI 2020-2021 Adaptation du vivant