Project:

Unveiling the hidden: de novo mt-genome assemblage of high-altitude Peripatus sp.

Students:

Samin Ragib, Kenny Chen

Institution:

St. John's University, Queens

Mentors:

Genrietta Yagudayeva

Abstract:

Although velvet worms of the Peripatus genus are commonly found in low-altitude moist areas, such as tropical or temperate rainforests or woodlands, those found in high altitudes, like the Andes mountains of Quito, Ecuador, strike immense curiosity in their habitat-based adaptive evolution. A study similar to this one has already been investigated in a prior UBRP project of our lab: a mitochondrial (mt) genome and species identification of an unknown Amaga sp. (planaria) also found in the high Andes. Using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), we propose identifying a sample of the observable Peripatus genus but of unknown species. As mentioned, this velvet worm specimen lives in a habitat similar to the previously mentioned planaria; thus, in this proposal, we will recreate the methods we used with the planaria specimen to now investigate the velvet worm specimen. The proposed methods include first undergoing TRIzol RNA extraction followed by transcriptome sequencing, and essentially, we

Poster:

Team samples: