Reconstructing the first true placental mammal: elucidating the molecular evolution of implantation in mammals

We have identified 13 miRNAs that emerged at the origin of placental mammals and have remained fixed in all extant placental mammal lineages. We know that they are expressed in placenta, we know that most of them have been directly implicated in placental abnormalities and/or pregnancy loss. In addition, we know that their expression is elicited in response to the presence of key pregnancy molecules (these are molecules that are expressed at the start of pregnancy in mammals). What we would like to know in this rotation project is whether the targets of these highly conserved miRNAs changed or remained the same throughout the 150 million years of placental mammal evolution. Whilst the core business of embryonic implantation into the maternal endometrium/decidua exists in all successful mammal pregnancies, there is substantial variation in how implantation occurs across mammals. Unlocking the target profiles for these miRNAs will establish how they contribute to shared and/or variable features of embryonic implantation, and importantly will establish the molecular mechanisms and pathways involved in this regulatory network. The project is entirely computational in nature and will involve developing skills in HPC usage, programming, UNIX, statistics, comparative genomics, miRNA biology, regulatory networks, and molecular evolutionary theory.