Alexandra Dallaire
Future Leader Fellow
Department
Team
Specialism
Symbiosis, epigenetics, genomics, transposable elements, small RNA, evolutionary biology, data analysis.
Symbiosis is a key driver of life, fueling biodiversity across all major lineages with the vast majority of species being involved in some sort of symbiotic relationship. My ambition is directed towards discovering and understanding interrelationships across the Tree of life to protect species networks and fragile ecosystems that maintain these networks. It is the dawn of Big Data for biodiversity genomics. In the next few years, millions of new genome sequences will become available, but there is not enough research capacity to experimentally study all species. I use Tree of Life scale comparative genomics to identify signatures of symbiotic function, and to predict how likely species are to be involved in symbioses. My work covers genomic traits such as adaptive gene expansions, gene and pathway loss, transposable element dynamics and horizontal transfer events.
- PhD in molecular and cellular biology (Hons), Laval University (Canada), 2019
- MSc in molecular and cellular biology, Laval University (Canada), 2015
- BSc in biochemistry, Laval University (Canada), 2013
Burton, N. O., Riccio, C., Dallaire, A., Price, J., Jenkins, B., Koulman, A., & Miska, E. A. (2020).
Cysteine synthases CYSL-1 and CYSL-2 mediate C. elegans heritable adaptation to P. vranovensis infection.
Nature communications, 11: 1-13.
Dallaire, A., Manley, B. F., Wilkens, M., Bista, I., Quan, C., Evangelisti, E., & Miska, E. A. (2021).
Transcriptional activity and epigenetic regulation of transposable elements in the symbiotic fungus Rhizophagus irregularis.
bioRxiv.
Dallaire, A., Frédérick, P. M., & Simard, M. J. (2018).
Somatic and germline microRNAs form distinct silencing complexes to regulate their target mRNAs differently.
Developmental cell, 47: 239-247.
Dallaire, A., & Simard, M. J. (2016).
The implication of microRNAs and endo-siRNAs in animal germline and early development.
Developmental biology, 416: 18-25.
Dallaire A, Proulx S, Simard MJ, Lebel M. (2014).
Expression profile of Caenorhabditis elegans mutant for the Werner syndrome gene ortholog reveals the impact of vitamin C on development to increase life span.
BMC Genomics. 15: 1-11.
Vasquez-Rifo, A., Bossé, G. D., Rondeau, E. L., Jannot, G., Dallaire, A., & Simard, M. J. (2013).
A new role for the GARP complex in microRNA-mediated gene regulation.
PLoS genetics, 9: e1003961.
Dallaire A, Garand C, Paquel ER, Mitchell SJ, de Cabo R, Simard MJ, Lebel M. (2012).
Down regulation of miR-124 in both Werner syndrome DNA helicase mutant mice and mutant Caenorhabditis elegans wrn-1 reveals the importance of this microRNA in accelerated aging.
Aging. 4: 636-47.