Detecting and confirming adaptive convergent amino acid evolution in hibernating animals: A computation and CRISPR-based approach

We have studied convergent amino acid substitutions (CAAS) in the uniquely resilient Arctic ground squirrel and confirmed their effect in cellular metabolism in a small subset using CRISPR-engineered cell lines. We hope to work together with the Data science team to develop a robust pipeline to detect CAAS in a broader array of metabolically resilient species which we can confirm in our ex vivo CRISPR models.