Wayne State University School of Medicine



	Natalie Jameson njameson@med.wayne.edu

Quick Look • Graduated with a BS from Oakland University • Currently a fourth-year student in the PhD Program My research is focused on New World monkeys; these are the 125 species of primate whose ranges span from Mexico to South America. New World monkeys (NWMs) also known as platyrrhines are the sister group to the catarrhines, a clade made up of Old World monkeys and Apes including humans. Much of my work focuses on resolving the phylogenetic relationships between platyrrhine species. This question has been investigated for decades using both morphological and molcular approaches, however, a fully resolved phylogeny has yet to be obtained. I am working toward this goal using standard phylogenetic methods to analyzing non-genic DNA markers sequences from a variety of NWM species. A fully resolved platyrrhine phylogeny will allow for a better understanding of primate evolution as well as advances in comparative studies involving these species. Due to rapid divergence among NWMs some species have proven to be exceedingly difficult to place within the clade. One of these is Callimico goeldii. Recent molecular studies have shown us that Callimico is a callitrichine and is sister to the marmosets and tamarins. One ot the interesting features that separate Callimico from other callitrichines is its reproductive method. Except for Callimico who has a single birth at each pregnancy, all other callitrichines consistently produce twins or triplets. Based on the molecular phylogeny the most parsimonious explanation is that over time Callimico has lost the ability to twin. I am currently investigating embryo resorption in Callimico as a possible mechanism for this loss. Understanding the processes that lead to loss of twinning will provide further insight into the mechanisms surrounding twinning and birth in all primates. Publications Jameson NM, Hou ZC, Sterner KN, Weckle A, Goodman M, Steiper ME, Wildman DE. Genomic data reject the hypothesis of a prosimian primate clade (2011). Journal of Human Evolution. PMID: 21620437 Wildman DE, Jameson NM, Opazo JC, Yi SV. A fully resolved genus level phylogeny of neotropical primates (Platyrrhini) (2009). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, PMID: 19632342 Papper Z, Jameson NM, Romero R, Weckle AL, Mittal P, Benirschke K, Santolaya-Forgas J, Uddin M, Haig D, Goodman M, Wildman DE. Ancient origin of placental expression in the growth hormone genes of anthropoid primates. PNAS, PMID: 19805162 Jameson N, Georgelis N, Fouladbash E, Martens S, Hannah LC, Lal SK. Helitron mediated amplification of cytochrome P450 monooxygenase gene in maize (2008). Plant Molecular Biology. PMID: 18327644 Gupta S, Ciungi A, Jameson N, Lal SK. Alternative splicing expression of U1 snRNP 70K gene is evolutionary conserved between different plant species (2006). DNA Seq. PMID: 17312944