Animals are thriving with microbial life, often establishing intimate symbiotic relationships with their tiny companions. When these persist over evolutionary time, they bring about deep changes to both the hosts and their symbionts. Since his early studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and subsequent PhD at the University of Valencia (Spain), Alejandro has been exploring the impact of symbiotic interactions on the biology and evolution of hosts and symbionts at the genomic, metabolic, and morphological levels. His research deals with animal-microbe symbioses, with a focus on two animal systems with nutrient-restricted diets: aphids and blood-feeding leeches. He approaches the study of these organisms using genomic, microscopic, and evolutionary methods.
Development of an artificial symbiont’s birth (SymBirth)
Strict blood-feeding leeches (you heard that right, there are several that do not feed on blood!) are confronted with a strong B-vitamin deficiency…
Manzano-Marín A, Simon JC, Latorre A. Reinventing the Wheel and Making It Round Again: Evolutionary Convergence in Buchnera-Serratia Symbiotic Consortia between the Distantly Related Lachninae Aphids Tuberolachnus salignus and Cinara cedri. Genome Biology and Evolution. 2016 May 1;8(5):1440-1458. Epub 2016 Apr 22. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evw085
Klein A, Schrader L, Gil R, Manzano-Marín A, Flórez L, Wheeler D et al. A novel intracellular mutualistic bacterium in the invasive ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. The ISME Journal: multidisciplinary journal of microbial ecology. 2016 Feb 1;10(2):376-388. Epub 2015 Jul 14. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2015.119
Manzano-Marín A, Oceguera-Figueroa A, Latorre A, Jiménez-García LF, Moya A. Solving a Bloody Mess: B-Vitamin Independent Metabolic Convergence among Gammaproteobacterial Obligate Endosymbionts from Blood-Feeding Arthropods and the Leech Haementeria officinalis. Genome Biology and Evolution. 2015 Oct;7(10):2871-2884. Epub 2015 Oct 9. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evv188
Manzano-Marín A, Latorre A. Settling down: the genome of Serratia symbiotica from the aphid Cinara tujafilina zooms in on the process of accommodation to a cooperative intracellular life. Genome Biology and Evolution. 2014 Jul 1;6(7):1683-1698. Epub 2014 Jun 19. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evu133
Manzano-Marín A, Lamelas A, Moya A, Latorre A. Comparative genomics of Serratia spp.: two paths towards endosymbiotic life. PLoS ONE. 2012 Oct 15;7(10):e47274. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0047274
