A College of Charleston researcher has discovered that there is a lot know about anoles. The little green lizards that thrive in the lowcountry may offer some insight into how the genomes of humans, mammals, and other reptiles have evolved.

Andrew Shedlock, Assistant Professor of Marine Genomics at the College of Charleston is a member of a team of scientists who has sequenced the genome of an anole. This is the first time the genome sequence of a non-avian reptile has been mapped.

“Scientifically speaking, the view of the vertebrate genomic world is still very flat, with mostly mammalian genomes available at this early period of exploration,” says Shedlock. “The first bird genomes sequenced in recent years, for chicken and a finch, turned out to be much more compact and homogeneous than expected and revealed very little about the origins of our own human genome structure and content. This large evolutionary gap between mammals and birds is now being closed by the analysis of non-avian reptile genomes and the anole lizard provides our very first window on what promises to be a large, complex and diverse genomic landscape among various reptile groups.”

He says the full sequencing of the lizard’s genome may offer insights into how the genomes of humans, mammals, and their reptilian counterparts have evolved since mammals and reptiles parted ways millions of years ago.

Shedlock is currently working with several College of Charleston Biology and Discovery Informatics students to incorporate lessons learned from the lizard genome into new student-driven research projects aimed at both basic and applied research in vertebrate genomics.

“It is a very exciting period of biological discovery on a fundamental level that integrates vertically from molecules to organisms to ecology with great practical applications, not unlike the early period of natural history exploration of the New World during the age of Darwin’s voyage on the H. M. S. Beagle,” explains Shedlock.

The results of the anole research were recently published in the journal Nature.