Alexander Hesselberg

Cellular development of Sphaeroforma arctica

I am using single-cell transcriptomics on the Choanozoan Sphaeroforma arctica to find differences in gene expression between three cell morphologies as it goes through it’s life cycle. By finding out which genes S.arctica expresses during it’s life cycle we want to gain insight into which genes that were important for the evolutionary transition from a unicellular to a multicellular lifestyle.