Eric Haag
Professor
Contact
Email: ehaag@umd.edu
Office Phone: 301.405.8534
Lab: 301.405.8625
Fax: 301.314.9358
Office Address: 0256 Bio-Psych
URL: http://www.life.umd.edu/biology/haag/index.html
Teaching
BSCI207 Organismal Biology
BSCI339A/BIOL708I: The Biology of Sex
BSCI339E/BIOL709E: Developmental Genetics
Graduate Program Affiliations
Research Interests
Many animal and plant groups show a pattern of variation in which an ancestral, fully outcrossing sexual system is occasionally abandoned in favor of partial or complete uniparental reproduction. Dr. Haag's lab has focused on one of the most experimentally tractable of these groups, the rhabditid nematode genus Caenorhabditis. At least three separate times in this genus, the historically female sex has evolved self-fertility through the acquisition of limited spermatogenesis. Starting with the wealth of knowledge about "the worm," C. elegans, Dr. Haag's research has touched on a number of related topics. A major focus has been on the evolution of germline sex determination (the proximate cause of self-fertilty) and the genetics of convergent evolution. More recently, his group has documented a number of surprising consequences of self-fertility, such as substantial loss of protein-coding genes and hypersensitivity to the harmful effects of cross-species mating. These latter topics underscore the important ways in which a simple change in transmission genetics can rapidly, reproducibly, and radically alter other biological attributes of an organism.
Recent Publications
Education
Ph.D., Indiana University, 1997. (molecular, cell, & developmental biology; evolution)
Postdoctoral fellow, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madision, 1997-2001 (evolution of nematode sex determination genes).
Contact
Email: ehaag@umd.edu
Office Phone: 301.405.8534
Lab: 301.405.8625
Fax: 301.314.9358
Office Address: 0256 Bio-Psych
URL: http://www.life.umd.edu/biology/haag/index.html
Teaching
BSCI207 Organismal Biology
BSCI339A/BIOL708I: The Biology of Sex
BSCI339E/BIOL709E: Developmental Genetics
Graduate Program Affiliations
- BISI - BISI-Molecular & Cellular Biology (MOCB)
- BISI - BISI-Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, & Systematics (BEES)
Research Interests
Many animal and plant groups show a pattern of variation in which an ancestral, fully outcrossing sexual system is occasionally abandoned in favor of partial or complete uniparental reproduction. Dr. Haag's lab has focused on one of the most experimentally tractable of these groups, the rhabditid nematode genus Caenorhabditis. At least three separate times in this genus, the historically female sex has evolved self-fertility through the acquisition of limited spermatogenesis. Starting with the wealth of knowledge about "the worm," C. elegans, Dr. Haag's research has touched on a number of related topics. A major focus has been on the evolution of germline sex determination (the proximate cause of self-fertilty) and the genetics of convergent evolution. More recently, his group has documented a number of surprising consequences of self-fertility, such as substantial loss of protein-coding genes and hypersensitivity to the harmful effects of cross-species mating. These latter topics underscore the important ways in which a simple change in transmission genetics can rapidly, reproducibly, and radically alter other biological attributes of an organism.
Recent Publications
- Kelleher, D.F., de Carvalho, C.E., Doty AV, Layton M, Cheng AT, Mathies LD, Pilgrim D, Haag ES (2008) Comparative genetics of sex determination: Masculinizing mutations in Caenorhabditis briggsae. Genetics 178: 1415-29.
- Barriere, A., Yang, S-P., Pekarek, E., Thomas, C.G., Haag, E.S., and Ruvinsky, I. (2009). Detecting heterozygosity in the shotgun genome assemblies of obligately outcrossing nematodes. Genome Res. 19: 470-80
- Hill, R.C. and Haag, E.S. (2009). A sensitized genetic background reveals evolution near the terminus of the Caenorhabitis germline sex determination pathway. Evol. & Dev. 11: 333-342.
- Woodruff, G.C., Eke, O., Baird, S.E., Félix, M.A., and Haag, E.S.* (2010). Insights into species divergence and the evolution of hermaphroditism from fertile interspecies hybrids of Caenorhabditis nematodes. Genetics 186: 997-1012
- Koboldt, D.C., Staisch, J., Thillainathan, B., Haines, K., Baird, S.E., Chamberlin, H.M., Haag, E.S., Miller, R.D., and Gupta, B.P. (2010) A toolkit for rapid gene mapping in the nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae. BMC Genomics 11: 236
- Ross, J.A., Koboldt, D.C., Staisch, J.E., Chamberlin, H.M., Gupta, B.P., Miller, R.D., Baird, S.E., and Haag, E.S. (2011). Caenorhabditis briggsae recombinant inbred line genotypes reveal inter-strain incompatibilities and the evolution of recombination. PLoS Genetics 7: e1002174
- Beadell, A.V., Liu, Q., Johnson, D.M., and Haag, E.S. (2011) Independent recruitments of a translational regulator in the evolution of self-fertile nematodes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA 108: 19672-77
- Liu, Q., Stumpf, C., Thomas, C.G., Wickens, M., and Haag E.S. (2012) Context-dependent function of a conserved translational regulatory module. Development 139: 1509-21.
- Thomas, C.G., Li, R., Smith, H.E., Woodruff, G.C., Oliver, B., and Haag, E.S. (2012). Simplification and desexualization of gene expression in self-fertile nematodes. Current Biology 22: 2167-2172.
- Liu, Q. and Haag, E.S. (2014). Evolutionarily dynamic roles of a PUF RNA-binding protein in the somatic development of Caenorhabditis briggsae. Journal of Experimental Zoology, Part B 322: 129-141
- Ting, J.T., Woodruff, G.C., Leung, G., Shing, N-R., Cutter, A.D.*, and Haag, E.S.* (2014) Intense sperm-mediated sexual conflict promotes reproductive isolation in Caenorhabditis nematodes. PLoS Biology 12(8): e1001915.
Education
Ph.D., Indiana University, 1997. (molecular, cell, & developmental biology; evolution)
Postdoctoral fellow, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madision, 1997-2001 (evolution of nematode sex determination genes).