Courtney C. Babbitt

About

We are motivated by questions aimed at understanding how cis-regulatory element evolution impacts organismal phenotypes, how developmental mechanisms evolve, and how comparative evolutionary genomics can inform our understanding of the genotype to phenotype map. Specifically, we use comparative high-throughput sequencing and functional genomics to understand how differences in transcription and regulation lead to differences in phenotypes.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Evolutionary biology
• Neuroscience
• Cell biology
• Biochemistry
• Computational biology

Selected publications

• Evolutionary Variation in MADS Box Dimerization Affects Floral Development and Protein Abundance in Maize

  The Plant Cell · 2020 · 43 citations

  ) as an experimental system. We found that differential B-class dimerization was associated with subtle, quantitative differences in stamen shape. In contrast, differential dimerization resulted in large-scale changes to downstream gene expression. Differential dimerization also affected B-class complex composition and abundance, independent of transcript levels. This indicates that differential B-class dimerization affects protein degradation, revealing an important consequence for evolutionary…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tempo and mode of gene expression evolution in the brain across primates

  eLife · 2024-01-26 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Primate evolution has led to a remarkable diversity of behavioral specializations and pronounced brain size variation among species (Barton, 2012; DeCasien and Higham, 2019; Powell et al., 2017). Gene expression provides a promising opportunity for studying the molecular basis of brain evolution, but it has been explored in very few primate species to date (e.g. Khaitovich et al., 2005; Khrameeva et al., 2020; Ma et al., 2022; Somel et al., 2009). To understand the landscape of gene expression e…

  PublisherDOI

• Metabolic changes in human brain evolution

  Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews · 2020 · 14 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Because the human brain is considerably larger than those of other primates, it is not surprising that its energy requirements would far exceed that of any of the species within the order. Recently, the development of stem cell technologies and single-cell transcriptomics provides novel ways to address the question of what specific genomic changes underlie the human brain's unique phenotype. In this review, we consider what is currently known about human brain metabolism using a variety of metho…

  PublisherDOI

• Astrocytes Drive Divergent Metabolic Gene Expression in Humans and Chimpanzees

  Genome Biology and Evolution · 2023-12-30 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The human brain utilizes ∼20% of all of the body's metabolic resources, while chimpanzee brains use <10%. Although previous work shows significant differences in metabolic gene expression between the brains of primates, we have yet to fully resolve the contribution of distinct brain cell types. To investigate cell type-specific interspecies differences in brain gene expression, we conducted RNA-seq on neural progenitor cells, neurons, and astrocytes generated from induced pluripotent stem cells…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Differentially Active and Conserved Neural Enhancers Define Two Forms of Adaptive Noncoding Evolution in Humans

  Genome Biology and Evolution · 2022-07-22 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The human and chimpanzee genomes are strikingly similar, but our neural phenotypes are very different. Many of these differences are likely driven by changes in gene expression, and some of those changes may have been adaptive during human evolution. Yet, the relative contributions of positive selection on regulatory regions or other functional regulatory changes are unclear. Where are these changes located throughout the human genome? Are functional regulatory changes near genes or are they in…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• The genomics of metabolic change in human and non-human primate brain evolution

  NSF · $473k · 2022–2026

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating astrocyte-mediated adaptive changes in primate brain metabolism

  NSF · $32k · 2019–2020

• Positive Selection on Gene Regulation and the Evolution of the Human Brain

  NSF · $330k · 2018–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Gregory A. Wray

  Duke University

  28 shared

• Patrick R. Hof

  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

  20 shared

• Mary Ann Raghanti

  Kent State University

  17 shared

• Trisha M. Zintel

  17 shared

• Amy L. Bauernfeind

  Washington University in St. Louis

  16 shared

• Olivier Fédrigo

  14 shared

• Ralph Haygood

  14 shared

• Shelly R. Peyton

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  10 shared

Labs

• BABBITT LABPI

  Courtney Babbitt, Ph.D

Similar researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Lynn Adlerh-43
• R. Craig Albertsonh-41
• Paul S. Katzh-37