Nataša Puzović


               

PhD Student
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
puzovic [at] evolbio.mpg.de
npuzovic [at] protonmail.com

About me


I'm a biologist interested in evolution and complex systems.
See my work

Evolution of gene expression noise in gene regulatory networks


Expression noise is the variability of gene expression level, present eveng among isogenic cells grown in identical conditions. It's an inevitable consequence of the stochasticity of diffusion and binding of the molecular players involved in transcription and translation. It was shown that expression noise is an evolvable trait and that the position of the gene in gene networks affects its expression noise level. To study the impact of the gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise, we develop a gene regulatory network model with expression noise and use it to simulate the evolution of expression noise in populations of model gene networks.
Preprint coming very soon...

Evolution of gene expression noise in fluctuating environments


Changing environments can lead to the development of adaptive strategies such as bet-hedging, in which long-term fitness of a genotype is increased at the cost of increasing the variance of fitness of individual organisms. One way to implement bet-hedging is to increase the gene expression noise of a gene that is involved in environmental response. However, the expression noise of a gene depends on its intrinsic expression noise and its position in the gene network. Therefore, a gene network can adapt at the network level to fluctuating environments. We are exploring this hypothesis using evolutionary forward-in-time simulations, in which we simulate the evolution of populations of model gene regulatory networks under selective and nonselective conditions.

Being noisy in a crowd: differential selective pressure on gene expression noise in model gene regulatory networks

Nataša Puzović, Tanvi Madaan, Julien Y. Dutheil

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.01.502352v1 logo
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Inference of recombination maps from a single pair of genomes and its application to ancient samples

Gustavo V. Barroso, Nataša Puzović, Julien Y. Dutheil

Recommended citation: V. Barroso G, Puzović N, Dutheil JY (2019) Inference of recombination maps from a single pair of genomes and its application to ancient samples. PLOS Genetics 15(11): e1008449. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008449 logo
PDF here

The evolution of gene-specific transcriptional noise is driven by selection at the pathway level

Gustavo Valadares Barroso, Natasa Puzovic, Julien Y Dutheil

Recommended citation: Gustavo Valadares Barroso, Natasa Puzovic, Julien Y Dutheil, The Evolution of Gene-Specific Transcriptional Noise Is Driven by Selection at the Pathway Level, Genetics, Volume 208, Issue 1, 1 January 2018, Pages 173–189,
https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.117.300467 logo
PDF here

Talks

International Max Planck Research School for Evolutionary Biology Retreat 2021

Oral presentation
"Noisy neighbours will be reported - how gene network topology affects the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Kiel, Germany, 16-17 Sept 2021

Aquavit 2021

Oral presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 17-18 June 2021

Interdisciplinary Approach to Molecular Evolution 2020

Approche Interdisciplinaire de l'Evolution Moléculaire (AIEM)

Oral presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 15-17 December 2020

Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution Annual Meeting 2019

Oral presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Session: Evolution of Proteins and Molecular Pathways/Networks under Higher Level Selective Effects
Manchester, United Kingdom 21-15 July 2019

Poster presentations

International Conference of Systems Biology (ICSB) 2022

Poster presentation
"Being noisy in a crowd: differential selective pressure on gene expression noise in model gene regulatory networks"
Berlin, Germany 08-12 October 2022
Download poster

Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution Annual Meeting 2021

Poster presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 03-08 July 2021

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Probabilistic Models in Genomics 2021

Poster presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 14-16 April 2021

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Network Biology Meeting 2021

Poster presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 16-19 March 2021

Aquavit 2020

Poster presentation
"The impact of gene network topology on the evolution of gene-specific expression noise"
Virtual, 15-17 December 2020

Education

Publications

  • V. Barroso G, Puzović N, Dutheil JY (2019) Inference of recombination maps from a single pair of genomes and its application to ancient samples. PLOS Genetics 15(11): e1008449. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008449
  • Gustavo Valadares Barroso, Natasa Puzovic, Julien Y Dutheil, The Evolution of Gene-Specific Transcriptional Noise Is Driven by Selection at the Pathway Level, Genetics, Volume 208, Issue 1, 1 January 2018, Pages 173–189, https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.117.300467

  • Conferences

  • International Max Planck Research School for Evolutionary Biology Retreat, oral presentation
         Kiel, Germany, 16-17 Sep 2021
  • Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution Annual Meeting (SMBE), virtual poster presentation
         Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution, 03-08 Jul 2021
  • Aquavit 2021, virtual poster presentation
         Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany, 17-18 Jun 2021
  • CSHL Probabilistic Modeling in Genomics, virtual poster presentation
         Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, USA, 14-16 Apr 2021
  • CSHL Network Biology Meeting, virtual poster presentation
         Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, USA, 16-19 Mar 2021
  • Interdisciplinary Approach to Molecular Evolution, virtual poster presentation
         CNRS, France, 15-17 Dec 2020
  • Aquavit 2020, virtual poster presentation
         Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön, Germany, Jun 2020
  • Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution Annual Meeting (SMBE), oral presentation
         Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution, Manchester, United Kingdom, 21-15 Jul 2019

  • Research Experience

  • Genomic Microbiology Group, PhD rotation (2019)
         Institute of General Microbiology, Kiel University, Kiel
  • Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics Research Group, PhD rotation (2019)
         Department of Evolutionary Theory, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön
  • Molecular Systems Evolution Research Group, Master's thesis project (2019)
         Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön
  • Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes (Laboratory for Matter and Complex Systems), internship (2018)
         UMR 7057 CNRS, Université Paris 7 Diderot, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité
  • Tautz Research Group, Internship (2018)
         Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön
  • Molecular Systems Evolution Research Group, Research Assistant (2017)
         Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön
  • Molecular Systems Evolution Research Group, Internship (2015, 2016)
         Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Plön

  • Supervision Experience

  • Nikhil Sharma, IMPRS PhD rotation (2020)
  • Tanvi Madaan, undergraduate internship (2020)

  • Awards, Fellowships, Certificates

  • ERASMUS+ Internship Scholarship, granted by ERASMUS+ of European Union (2018)
  • CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English), University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations (2012)
  • Fellowship of the City of Belgrade, granted by the City Administation of Belgrade (2010, 2011)

  • Skills

  • Computational skills: R, C++, MATLAB, Python
  • Bioinformatic software: MAFFT, iqtree, snakemake
  • Other software: Inkscape, Latex
  • Spoken languages: English (proficient), German (basic), Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian-Montenegrin (native)

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