Research+Interests+-+Dilrini+De+Silva

Dilrini De Silva PhD Candidate Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Biology Queen Mary, University﻿ of London

Research interests:
Coding sequences (exons) of genes have been extensively studied in the past however, little is known about most non-coding regions of the genome. A major focus of my research is characterising the evolution of human conserved noncoding elements (CNEs) identified by human-fugu (Japanese pufferfish) genome alignments. These CNEs have sequence identities greater than exonic regions in interspecific alignments at great evolutionary depths. They are clustered around genes regulating transcription and development and the absence of CNEs with similar sequence identity in invertebrates suggests they may have played an important role in vertebrate development.

Initial analysis of the site frequency spectrum in CNEs, obtained from HapMap population data show a striking resemblance to the site frequency spectrum at nonsynonymous sites, suggesting that similar selection pressures are acting on CNEs. Henceforth my research will diversify in two broad directions where 1) I will try to characterise selection in CNEs and 2) Investigate the effect of SNPs in Pbx-Hox motifs (a transcription factor binding site) located within CNEs to determine if they play a functional role.