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SUMMARY:Dr. Jaksic Lab: Samuel Bourgeat - Searching for the genetic basis 
 of natural variation of brain morphology in Drosophila melanogaster
DTSTART:20220921T121500
DTEND:20220921T130000
DTSTAMP:20260610T113822Z
UID:77e52984d4720146c32cfd27f7a855c83f0460ac767f88ce17180d15
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Samuel Bourgeat\, BMI\nHybrid - By invitation only\n\nFrom gen
 omics to connectomics\, the fruit fly has helped us build better and more 
 precise comprehension of the functioning of the nervous system.\nHowever\,
  our knowledge of the genetic basis of natural variation in brain size and
  morphology is still incomplete\, while it can help us shed light onto the
  genetic architecture of this trait and the evolutionary potential of the 
 behaviours it may affect.\nQuantifying subtle natural genetic diversity of
  brain morphology is challenging because brain morphology is malleable to 
 not only genetic\, but also developmental and environmental factors that a
 re difficult to control. To overcome this issue\, we developed a high-thro
 ughput and sensitive imaging method to quantify brain morphology of divers
 e fly lines from the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) reared in t
 ightly controlled environmental conditions.\nIn our method\, we use a micr
 o-computed tomography scanner with a multiple-sample-holder system to imag
 e up to 24 whole fly heads per day at a 3 micron/pixel resolution. To unbi
 asedly capture the full range of morphological diversity of fly brains we 
 first reconstruct a 3D model of heads and manually segment the brains for 
 a range of diverse DGRP lines. This segmentation data is used to train a c
 onvolutional neural network which is then used to automatically and unbias
 edly segment brains from all available DGRP lines. We then extract the vol
 umes as well as morphology of the brains using topological data analysis. 
 By using a topological variable called persistence entropy we can summaris
 e\, cluster and classify topological features of brains based on their mor
 phological similarities. Our quantification method could capture genetic v
 ariation underlying brain's shape and size. The mapping of those phenotypi
 c variations onto the variation in DNA sequence of all DGRP lines will ena
 ble us to identify and characterize the genetic variation influencing brai
 n morphology and size.\n\n 
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STATUS:CONFIRMED
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