Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Leininger, Elizabeth

Area of Concentration

Neurobiology

Abstract

There is an inherent relationship between genetic information, physiological intermediates, and animal behavior. When studying animal behavior, it is important that not only this relationship is studied, but that the relationship is studied in a comparative, evolutionary context. In doing so, it can be determined which physiological intermediates are necessary and sufficient for a behavior to occur. One such behavior where the behavior itself is understood but not the entirety of the physiological intermediates or genetic basis is the vocalization of ​Xenopus borealis ​ , a type of African clawed frog.​ ​ In this study, I used bioinformatic techniques and comparative genomics to better understand the genetic basis and evolutionary context of the vocalization of ​X. borealis ​ . To do so I used NCBI BLAST and known genetic sequences from the related species​ X. tropicalis ​ to locate the relevant ​genes that have yet to be identified in​ ​ X. borealis ​ . Once the genes were located, I referenced data from the UCSC Genome Browser to study the sequences in a comparative, evolutionary context. Exons of the myh3, myh3e, myh4, myh4-like, and myh13 genes were located in the ​X. borealis ​ genome. These exons were then used to construct RNA sequences. It was found that the majority of the exon sequences are conserved across species. It was also determined where exon sequences of the relevant genes were not conserved.

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