Projects & Grants
| Illuminating the deep evolutionary roots of the Ras superfamily of GTPases | |
|---|---|
| Project Id | 26-20876N |
| Main solver | Mgr. Romana Vargová, Ph.D. |
| Period | 1/2026 - 12/2028 |
| Provider | Grantová agentura ČR |
| State | solved |
| Anotation | Diversification of cellular structures and functions is underlined by evolution of proteins, with GTPases of the Ras superfamily being particularly relevant for the origin of cellular complexity and its variation across the eukaryote phylogeny. Recent research, including my own contribution, have pointed to the surprisingly deep evolutionary roots of the eukaryotic GTPase diversity, predicting a complex complement in the last eukaryotic common ancestor and its derivation from GTPases in the recently discovered Asgardarchaeota. These advances, however, left open a number of questions and defined new ones, some of which I want to address. Together with a PhD student we will reconstruct the diversity and evolution of the Ras family at the paneukaryotic scale, will investigate novel GTPases putatively associated with the cilium, will try to obtain the first functional data about a previously uncharacterized ancient GTPase, and will dig deeper into the diversity of the Ras superfamily in asgardarchaeotes. We will thus substantially improve our knowledge of the early GTPase evolution. |
| Total Costs | 4 152 000 CZK |
