Ph.D., University of California, Davis, 2009
Chromatin proteins package our genomic DNA. Essential, highly conserved cellular processes rely on this genome compartmentalization, yet many chromatin proteins are wildly unconserved over evolutionary time. We study the biological forces that drive chromatin protein evolution and the functional consequences for chromosome segregation, telomere integrity, and genome defense.
BIOL 221 Molecular Biology and Genetics
BIOL 433 The Genetics of Adaptation: How sex, pathogens, and the environment shape modern genomes
Brand, C.L. and M.T. Levine (2022) Cross-species incompatibility between a DNA satellite and the Drosophila Spartan homolog poisons germline genome integrity. Current Biology 32:1-10.
Brand C.L. and M.T. Levine (2021) Functional diversification of chromatin on rapid evolutionary timescales. Annual Review of Genetics 55: 401-425.
Kumon T., Ma, J., Stefanik, D., Nordgren, E., Akins, R.B., Kim, J., Levine, M.T., and M.A. Lampson (2021) Centromere drive and suppression by parallel pathways for recruiting microtubule destabilizers. Cell 184:4904-4918.e11
Saint-Leandre, B., Christopher, C., and M.T. Levine (2020) Adaptive evolution of an essential telomere protein restricts telomeric retrotransposons. eLife 9:e60987.
Saint-Leandre, B. and M.T. Levine (2020) The Telomere Paradox: Stable genome preservation with rapidly evolving proteins. Trends in Genetics. 36: 232-242
Saint-Leandre, B., Nguyen, SB., and M.T. Levine (2019). Diversification and collapse of a telomere elongation mechanism. Genome Research. 29: 920-931.
Helleu, Q. and M.T. Levine (2018) Recurrent amplification of the Heterochromatin Protein 1 (HP1) gene family across Diptera. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 35: 2375-2389.
Lee, Y.C.G., Leek, C., and M.T. Levine (2017) Recurrent innovation at genes required for telomere integrity in Drosophila. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 34:467-482.