Dr S Kelly

Research Area

Evolution, biodiversity and predictive biology

Research Description

Elucidating genome content and determining gene ancestry has become the decisive factor in inferring the evolutionary relationships of all cellular organisms. This type of molecular analysis is of paramount importance for unicellular organisms where discernable morphological markers are inherently less numerous. However, attempts at determining a pattern of relationship between organisms based on molecular data are confounded by numerous methodological problems such as inadequate models of sequence evolution and methods of tree inference and also by the lack of information both in terms of numbers and evolutionary distribution of available sequence data. To derive an accurate picture of the history of life on early earth we address these fundamental issues utilising whole-genome information.

Whole genome phylogenetic analyses bring with them the ability to make powerful testable predictions about the biology of particular organisms. The predictions arise by correlative and comparative genomics given the phylogenetic context of complex biological phenomena. The application of the same techniques to metagenome and environmental-derived sequence data also allow you to interrogate fundamental issues of biodiversity and community systems biology in complex communities and populations.

Publications

Daniels, JP., Kelly, S., Wickstead, B., and Gull, K. (2009). Identification of a crenarchaeal orthologue of Elf1: implications for chromatin and transcription in Archaea. Biol Direct 154, 103-9.

Kelly, S., Reed, J., Kramer, S., Ellis, L., Webb, H., Sunter, J., Salje, J., Marinsek, N., Gull, K., Wickstead, B., and Carrington, M. (2007). Functional genomics in Trypanosoma brucei: a collection of vectors for the expression of tagged proteins from endogenous and ectopic gene loci. Mol Biochem Parasitol 154, 103-9

Kelly, S., Devaux, S., Lecordier, L., Wickstead, B., Perez-Morga, D., Pays, E., Vanhamme, L., and Gull, K. (2007). Diversification of function by different isoforms of conventionally shared RNA polymerase subunits. Mol Biol Cell 18, 1293-1301.

Kelly, S., Singleton, W., Wickstead, B., Ersfeld, K., and Gull, K. (2006). Characterization and differential nuclear localization of Nopp140 and a novel Nopp140-like protein in trypanosomes. Eukaryot Cell 5, 876-879.

Kelly, S., Wickstead, B., and Gull, K. (2005). An in silico analysis of trypanosomatid RNA polymerases: insights into their unusual transcription. Biochem Soc Trans 33, 1435-1437

Full Publication List (while at this department)

Kelly, S, Wickstead, B, Maini, P.K, Gull, K. (2011) Ab initio identification of novel regulatory elements in the genome of Trypanosoma brucei by Bayesian inference on sequence segmentation PLoS ONE. 6 (10):.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025666.