Genomic Approaches to Understanding Adaptation and Plasticity at High Altitude

Dr. Abigail Bigham, UCLA
October 3, 202 4 - 5 PM
CU Boulder Museum of Natural History - Paleontology Hall

At high altitude, hypoxia is the fundamental challenge that high-altitude sojourners and native residents face, necessitating physiological acclimatization and/or genetic adaptation to overcome. Long-resident populations of high altitude, such as Himalayans and Andeans, have adapted to hypoxia through genetic changes that impact altitude-adaptive phenotypes. High-altitude sojourners display epigenetic changes that may facilitate plastic physiological responses to low oxygen availability. Ongoing research is working towards identifying the functional consequence of altitude-adaptive variation, both genetic and epigenetic. Together, these results provide key insights into the patterns of genetic adaptation and epigenetic plasticity to high-altitude hypoxia, shed light on genetic variation contributing to complex phenotypes, and are of potential importance for public health given HIF-pathway involvement with various disease processes such as chronic ischemic disease and regulation of tumor growth.