Brandon S. Gaut

Picture of Brandon S. Gaut
Distinguished Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
School of Biological Sciences
Ph.D., University of California, Riverside, 1992, Genetics
Phone: (949) 824-2564
Fax: (949) 824-2181
Email: bgaut@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine

Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
population genetics, molecular evolution, genome evolution
Academic Distinctions
2017 Plenary Speaker, Ecological Society of Mexico
2017 Keynote Speaker, International Botanical Congress, Shenzen, China
2017 Excellence in Undergraduate Education, Ayala School, UC Irvine
2016 Visiting Scholar-in-Residence, Borchard Foundation, Misillac, France
2015 Past-President, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
2014 President, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
2014 Nei Lecture, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
2013 President-Elect, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
2008 Professor of the Year, U.C. Irvine
2008 Elected AAAS Fellow
2007 Tsujimoto Lecture, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley
2003 Plenary Speaker, Plant and Animal Genome XI, San Diego, CA
2002 Outstanding Professor, U.C. Irvine (voted by the Senior Class)
2002 Biological Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award
1995-1997 Sloan Foundation Young Investigator Fellowship
1992-1995 NIH postdoctoral fellow
Research Abstract
Research in my laboratory focuses on evolutionary genetics of plant systems, with particular emphasis on molecular evolution, population genetics, comparative genomics and epigenomics. We also have ongoing investigations into the genetic mechanism underlying the adaptation of E. coli to thermal stress.
Publications
Gaut, BS, DK Seymour, Q Liu and Y Zhou. 2018. Demography and its effects on genomic variation in crop domestication. Nature Plants, 4(8):512-520.
Roessler, K, A Bousios, E Meca and BS Gaut. 2018. Modeling interactions between transposable elements and the plant epigenetic response: a surprising reliance on element retention. Genome Biology and Evolution,10(3):803-815.
Zhou, Y, M Massonnet, J Sanjak, D Cantu and BS Gaut..2017. The Evolutionary Genomics of Grape (Vitis vinifera ssp. vinifera) Domestication, Proc Natl Acad. Sci, 114(44):11715-11720
González-González, A, SM Hug, A Rodríguez-Verdugo, JS Patel, and BS Gaut. 2017. Adaptive mutations in RNA polymerase and the transcriptional terminator Rho have similar effects on Escherichia coli gene expression. Mol. Biol. Evol, 34(11):2839-2855
Takuno, S, DK Seymour, BS Gaut. 2017. The evolutionary dynamics of orthologs that shift in gene body methylation between Arabidopsis species. Mol. Biol. Evol. 34:1479-1491.
Takuno, S., J-H Ran and BS Gaut. 2016. Evolutionary patterns of genic DNA methylation vary across Land Plants. Nature Plants doi:10.1038/nplants.2015.222.
Bousios, A, CM Diez, S Takuno, V Bystry, N Darzentas and BS Gaut. 2016. Palindromic structures in maize Sirevirus LTRs are central to the interplay between transposable element evolution and the host epigenetic response. Genome Research 26(2):226-37.
Rodriguez-Verdugo, A, O Tenaillon and BS Gaut. 2016. First-step Mutations during Adaptation to Thermal Stress Shift the Expression of Thousands of Genes Back toward the Pre-stressed State. Mol. Biol. Evol. 33(1):25-39.
Diez, CM, I Trujillo, N Martinez-Urdiroz, D Barranco, L Rallo, P Marfil, BS Gaut. 2015. Olive domestication and diversification in the Meditteranean Basin. New Phytologist, 206:436-447.
Professional Societies
Last updated
10/03/2022