Position

Associate Professor of Genetics, Department of Genetics

Education

Bachelor in Biological Sciences, University of Valencia, 1979
Master thesis in Biological Sciences, University of Valencia, 1980
PhD in Genetics, University of Valencia, 1986

Research interests

Molecular evolution
Genome annotation and comparative genomics
Intracellular bacterial symbiosis
Genome size reduction and minimal genome content
Gene-order phylogenetics

 

Professional Experience

1992-present Associate Professor of Genetics University of Valencia (Spain)
1989-1992 Assistant Professor of Genetics, University of Valencia (Spain)
1988-1989 Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Lund (Sweden)
1987-1988 Assistant Professor of Genetics, University of Valencia (Spain)

Recent publications

Gomez-Valero, L., Rocha, E.P.C., Latorre, A., and Silva, F.J. 2007. Reconstructing the ancestor of Mycobacterium leprae: The dynamics of gene loss and genome reduction. Genome Res. 17: in press-

Gomez-Valero, L., Silva, F.J., Simon, J.C., and Latorre, A. 2007. Genome reduction of the aphid endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola in a recent evolutionary time scale. Gene. 389: 87-95.

Delmotte, F., Rispe, C., Schaber, J., Silva, F.J., and Moya, A. 2006. Tempo and mode of early gene loss in endosymbiotic bacteria from insects. BMC Evol. Biol. 6: 56-

Gaudermann, P., Vogl, I., Zientz, E., Silva, F.J., Moya, A., Gross, R., and Dandekar, T. 2006. Analysis of and function predictions for previously conserved hypothetical or putative proteins in Blochmannia floridanus. BMC Microbiol. 6:

Gil, R., Sabater-Munoz, B., Perez-Brocal, V., Silva, F.J., and Latorre, A. 2006. Plasmids in the aphid endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola with the smallest genomes. A puzzling evolutionary story. Gene. 370: 17-25.

Perez-Brocal, V., Gil, R., Ramos, S., Lamelas, A., Postigo, M., Michelena, J.M., Silva, F.J., Moya, A., and Latorre, A. 2006. A small microbial genome: The end of a long symbiotic relationship? Science. 314: 312-313.

Silva, F.J., Belda, E., and Talens, S.E. 2006. Differential annotation of tRNA genes with anticodon CAT in bacterial genomes. Nucleic Acids Res. 34: 6015-6022.

Belda, E., Moya, A., and Silva, F.J. 2005. Genome rearrangement distances and gene order phylogeny in gamma-proteobacteria. Mol. Biol. Evol. 22: 1456-1467.

Latorre, A., Gil, R., Silva, F.J., and Moya, A. 2005. Chromosomal stasis versus plasmid plasticity in aphid endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola. Heredity. 95: 339-347.

Schaber, J., Rispe, C., Wernegreen, J., Buness, A., Delmotte, F., Silva, F.J., and Moya, A. 2005. Gene expression levels influence amino acid usage and evolutionary rates in endosymbiotic bacteria. Gene. 352: 109-117.

Belda, E., Sentandreu, V., and Silva, F.J. 2004. Identification and separation of PCR products based on their GC content by denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography. J. Chromatogr. B Analyt. Technol. Biomed. Life Sci. 811: 263-268.

Gil, R., Silva, F.J., Pereto, J., and Moya, A. 2004. Determination of the core of a minimal bacterial gene set. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 68: 518-+.

Gomez-Valero, L., Latorre, A., and Silva, F.J. 2004. The evolutionary fate of nonfunctional DNA in the bacterial endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola. Mol. Biol. Evol. 21: 2172-2181.

Sabater-Munoz, B., Van Ham, R.C.H.J., Moya, A., Silva, F.J., and Latorre, A. 2004. Evolution of the leucine gene cluster in Buchnera aphidicola: Insights from chromosomal versions of the cluster. J. Bacteriol. 186: 2646-2654.

Gil, R., Silva, F.J., Zientz, E., Delmotte, F., Gonzalez-Candelas, F., Latorre, A., Rausell, C., Kamerbeek, J., Gadau, J., Holldobler, B. et al. 2003. The genome sequence of Blochmannia floridanus: Comparative analysis of reduced genomes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 100: 9388-9393.

Latorre, A., Gil, R., Silva, F.J., Martinez-Torres, D., and Moya, A. 2003. Tempo and mode of genomic evolution in endosymbiotic bacteria of insects: The case of Buchnera aphidicola. Symbiosis. 34: 301-316.

Silva, F.J., Latorre, A., and Moya, A. 2003. Why are the genomes of endosymbiotic bacteria so stable? Trends Genet. 19: 176-180.

Van Ham, R.C.H.J., Kamerbeek, J., Palacios, C., Rausell, C., Abascal, F., Bastolla, U., Fernandez, J.M., Jimenez, L., Postigo, M., Silva, F.J. et al. 2003. Reductive genome evolution in Buchnera aphidicola. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 100: 581-586.

Gil, R., Sabater-Munoz, B., Latorre, A., Silva, F.J., and Moya, A. 2002. Extreme genome reduction in Buchnera spp.: Toward the minimal genome needed for symbiotic life. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 99: 4454-4458.

Moya, A., Latorre, A., Sabater-Munoz, B., and Silva, F.J. 2002. Comparative molecular evolution of primary (Buchnera) and secondary symbionts of aphids based on two protein-coding genes. J. Mol. Evol. 55: 127-137.

Sabater-Munoz, B., Gomez-Valero, L., Van Ham, R.C.H.J., Silva, F.J., and Latorre, A. 2002. Molecular characterization of the leucine cluster in Buchnera sp strain PSY, a primary endosymbiont of the aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68: 2572-2575.

Silva, F.J., Latorre, A., and Moya, A. 2001. Genome size reduction through multiple events of gene disintegration in Buchnera APS. Trends Genet. 17: 615-618.

Jimenez, N., Gonzalez-Candelas, F., and Silva, F.J. 2000. Prephenate dehydratase from the aphid endosymbiont (Buchnera) displays changes in the regulatory domain that suggest its desensitization to inhibition by phenylalanine. J. Bacteriol. 182: 2967-2969.

Soler, T., Latorre, A., Sabater, B., and Silva, F.J. 2000. Molecular characterization of the leucine plasmid from Buchnera aphidicola, primary endosymbiont of the aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. Curr. Microbiol. 40: 264-268.

Van Ham, R.C.H.J., Gonzalez-Candelas, F., Silva, F.J., Sabater, B., Moya, A., and Latorre, A. 2000. Postsymbiotic plasmid acquisition and evolution of the repA1-replicon in Buchnera aphidicola. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 97: 10855-10860.

Degrees Supervised (last 12 years)

1995 Ph D Escriche B. (codirector Dr. J. Ferré)
1996 Ph D Piedrafita A. C. (codirector Dr. M. D. Real)
1997 Ph D Ruiz-Vázquez, P. (codirector Dr. J. Ferré)
2000 Master Thesis Jiménez, N.
2000 Master Thesis Soler, T. (codirector Dr. A. Latorre)
2002 Ph D Sabater-Muñoz, B. (codirector Dr. A. Latorre)
2004 Master Thesis Goméz-Valero, L. (codirector Dr. A. Latorre)
2005 Master Thesis Belda, E. (codirector Dr. A. Moya)
2007 Ph D Goméz-Valero, L. (codirector Dr. A. Latorre)

 

Teaching (last five years)

In Biological Sciences Degree (University of Valencia, Spain)
Genetics
Molecular Evolution

PhD courses in the programs Molecular and Evolutionary Genetics AND Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (University of Valencia, Spain)

Molecular techniques applied to the study of biodiversity
Molecular markers applied to the study of biodiversity
Nucleic acid and protein sequence analysis

Postgraduate and Master courses
Genomics and Proteomics. Biophysical Perspectives (5th short course of the Portuguese Biophysical Society) Santarém (Portugal) 2003

Workshop on Bacterial Genomics organized by the British Council and the University of Valencia (Valencia, 2005)

Master in Biodiversity: Conservation and Evolution:

Techniques for the study of Biodiversity

Master in Molecular Biology, Celular Biology and Genetics:

Bioinformatics

Comparative genomics

 

 

Other university positions

Member of the Doctoral Commission (University of Valencia, Spain) (1997-2006)

Coordinator of Innovation (Second Course Biology) (2006-present)

 

 

Mailing address

            Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva
            Universitat de València
            Apartat de Correus 22085
            46071 - València
            Spain

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