Diego F Salazar-TortosaThe University of Arizona | UA · Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Diego F Salazar-Tortosa
PhD
Assessing the role of climate adaptation on human evolution and its implications for health
About
27
Publications
3,384
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151
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Diego F Salazar-Tortosa currently works at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona. Diego does research in human evolutionary genetics with an special focus on evolutionary mismatches at the genomic level and implications for health.
Additional affiliations
October 2021 - present
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Assessing the role of climate adaptation on human evolution and its implications for health, that is, the existence of evolutionary mismatches related to climate at the genomic level (ClimAHealth).
October 2019 - October 2021
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Application of mixture density distributions to study the determinants and prevalence of recent positive selection in the human genome.
October 2014 - January 2019
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- Determinant factors of pines response under a Global Change Scenario: an ecophysiological and evolutionary approach.
Education
October 2014 - January 2019
University of granada
Field of study
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
October 2013 - July 2014
September 2008 - September 2013
Publications
Publications (27)
Background:
To study the associations of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase-N1 (PTPN1) polymorphisms with obesity-related phenotypes in European adolescents, and the influence of physical activity on these relationships.
Methods:
Five polymorphisms of PTPN1 were genotyped in 1057 European adolescents (12-18 years old). We measured several phenotypes r...
Background
To study the associations of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase-N1 (PTPN1) polymorphisms with obesity-related phenotypes in European adolescents, and the influence of physical activity on these relationships.
Methods
Five polymorphisms of PTPN1 were genotyped in 1,057 European adolescents (12–18 years old). We measured several phenotypes rela...
Background: Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have previously been associated with blood pressure (BP) levels, in adults and children. A combination of SNPs, forming a genetic risk score (GRS) could be considered as a useful genetic tool to identify individuals at risk of developing hypertension from early stages in life. Therefore, th...
Background
Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are associated with blood pressure (BP) levels. A combination of SNPs, forming a genetic risk score (GRS) could be considered a useful genetic tool to identify individuals at risk of developing hypertension from early stages in life. Therefore, the study aims to predict the genetic predispos...
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a promising therapeutic target against obesity. Therefore, research on the genetic architecture of BAT could be key for the development of successful therapies against this complex phenotype. Hypothesis-driven candidate gene association studies are useful for studying genetic determinants of complex traits, but they ar...
How much genome differences between species reflect neutral or adaptive evolution is a central question in evolutionary genomics. In humans and other mammals, the prevalence of adaptive versus neutral genomic evolution has proven particularly difficult to quantify. The difficulty notably stems from the highly heterogeneous organization of mammalian...
Objectives
It is widely acknowledged that the experience of pain is promoted by both genetic susceptibility and environmental factors such as engaging in physical activity (PA) and that pain-related cognitions are also important. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to test the association of 64 polymorphisms (34 candidate-genes) and the gene...
Objectives
It is widely acknowledged that the experience of pain is promoted by both genetic susceptibility and environmental factors such as engaging in physical activity (PA) and that pain-related cognitions are also important. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to test the association of 64 polymorphisms (34 candidate-genes) and the gene...
Advances in genome sequencing have improved our understanding of the genetic basis of human diseases, and thousands of human genes have been associated with different diseases. Recent genomic adaptation at disease genes has not been well characterized. Here, we compare the rate of strong recent adaptation in the form of selective sweeps between men...
Fatigue is a cardinal symptom in fibromyalgia. Fatigue is assumed to be the result of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors. We aimed at examining the role of genetic susceptibility for fatigue in southern Spanish women with fibromyalgia, by looking at single nucleotide polymorphisms in 34 fibromyalgia candidate-genes, at the interaction...
The aim of this study was to investigate the association of endothelial lipase gene (LIPG) polymorphisms with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in adolescents and their interaction with physical activity.
Six polymorphisms of LIPG were genotyped in 1057 European adolescents (12–18 years old) enrolled in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nu...
Advances in genome sequencing have dramatically improved our understanding of the genetic basis of human diseases, and thousands of human genes have been associated with different diseases. Despite our expanding knowledge of gene-disease associations, and despite the medical importance of disease genes, their evolution has not been thoroughly studi...
Obesity is the result of interactions between genes and environmental factors. Since monogenic etiology is only known in some obesity-related genes, a genetic risk score (GRS) could be useful to determine the genetic predisposition to obesity. Therefore, the aim of our study was to build a GRS able to predict genetic predisposition to overweight an...
Obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are worldwide major health challenges. The Mediterranean diet (MD) is associated with a better cardiometabolic profile, but these beneficial effects may be influenced by genetic variations, modulating the predisposition to obesity or MetS. The aim was to assess whether interaction effects occur between an obesi...
Objectives:
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are responsible of 31% of all deaths worldwide. Genetic predisposition to CVDs in adolescents remains largely unknown. Aims of present research are to examine the association of ADIPOQ gene polymorphisms with cardiovascular disease risk factors in European adolescents.
Methods:
A total of 14 polymorphis...
Objectives
To examine the association of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) polymorphisms with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in European adolescents, along with the influence of physical activity on these associations.
Methods
A total of 13 LPL polymorphisms were genotyped in 1.057 European adolescents (12‐18 years old) from the Healthy Lifestyl...
Seed mass is a main determinant of seedling establishment, particularly under stressful conditions, as bigger seeds offer more resources to the emerging seedling. This has led to the expectation of increased seed mass under harsh conditions. Here, we studied the role of different components of environmental harshness on the evolution of seed size i...
Objective:
To examine the association between polymorphisms of the ciliary neurotrophic factor gene (CNTF) and total and central adiposity markers in adolescents.
Study design:
This cross-sectional study involved 1057 European adolescents aged 12-18 years enrolled in the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence Cross-Sectional Stu...
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are responsible for 31% of all deaths worldwide. Genetic predisposition to CVDs in adolescents remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association of UCP1, UCP2 and UCP3 gene polymorphisms with CVD risk factors in European adolescents.
A cross-sectional study that involves 1.057 European adol...
Seed dispersal is a major life history stage for plants. Because of its influence on reproductive success, dispersal is expected to be under strong selection. Different ecological circumstances might favour dispersal towards few suitable sites or alternatively, the random distribution of propagules among suitable and unsuitable sites. However, the...
Background
People with fibromyalgia identify fatigue as one of the main symptoms of the disease [1]. It is hypothesised that the pathogenesis of fibromyalgia involves a genetic susceptibility that is modulated by environmental factors [2]
Objectives
To examine the possible role of genetic susceptibility for fatigue in southern Spanish women with f...
Obesity is a pandemic that has increased exponentially during the past decades due in large part to recent changes in lifestyle and food delivery systems. Yet, there is still a great variability in the burden of obesity across ancestral populations. For example, in the United States (US) prevalence estimates of adult obesity vary from 13% to 48% in...
Aims
To examine the association between UCP1, UCP2, and UCP3 gene polymorphisms with adiposity markers in European adolescents and to test if there were gene interactions with objectively measured physical activity and adiposity.
Methods
A cross‐sectional study that involves 1.057 European adolescents (12‐18 years old) from the Healthy Lifestyle i...
Las condiciones ambientales en la Tierra están siendo modificadas por un conjunto de fenómenos globales conocidos como cambio global. Ejemplos de estos fenómenos serían cambios en los ciclos de varios nutrientes que favorecen desequilibrios estequiométricos en los ecosistemas o alternaciones en las condiciones climáticas entre las que destaca el in...
Climatic dryness imposes limitations on vascular plant growth by reducing stomatal conductance, thereby decreasing CO2 uptake and transpiration. Given that transpiration-driven water flow is required for nutrient uptake, climatic stress-induced nutrient deficit could be a key mechanism for decreased plant performance under prolonged drought. We pro...
Global warming will affect plant growth and survival. However, the impact of climatic conditions will differ across species depending on their stomatal response to increasing aridity, as this will ultimately
affect the balance between carbon assimilation and water loss. In this study, we monitored gas
exchange, growth and survival in saplings of th...
Seed dispersal is a major life history stage for plants. Because of its influence on reproductive success, dispersal is expected to be under strong selection. Different ecological circumstances might favor dispersal towards few suitable sites (i.e., directed dispersal) or alternatively, the random distribution of propagules across the landscape. Ho...
Projects
Projects (2)
Climate is a key environmental factor and one of the main selective pressures affecting the survival of organisms, including human beings. Human populations were exposed to a wide range of environmental conditions after the migration Out of Africa, which could have shaped the evolution of traits related to metabolism, like thermoregulation. In this project, we will search for signals of selection caused by climate across the human genome to study climate adaptation in our species. We will assess the existence of recent and ancient events of selection using novel approaches that increase the statistical power respect to previous methods and control for many genomic confounding factors that are usually overlooked. We will combine bootstrapping and machine learning methods to this end. This project will focus on the influence of climate in the evolution of traits related to metabolism (thermoregulation in tissues like brown adipose tissue and skeletal muscle). We will also consider the influence of adaptive introgression from archaic humans (e.g. Neanderthals) that human populations encountered during their migrations. Finally, the evolutionary information generated will be used to inform genetic association studies and medical genetics. We will assess the influence of climate adaptation in current health issues by testing the relationship between climate-selected variants and prevalence of non-infectious chronic diseases. Finally, we will propose and test novel candidate genes for these diseases from genomic regions with high signals of climate selection.
For more information visit: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101030971
The HELENA-CSS is a multicenter investigation carried out in 10 European cities: Athens (Greece), Dortmund (Germany), Ghent (Belgium), Heraklion (Greece), Lille (France), Pécs (Hungary), Rome (Italy), Stockholm (Sweden), Vienna (Austria) and Zaragoza (Spain).
The main aim of the HELENA-CSS was to obtain reliable and comparable data on a broad battery of relevant nutrition and health-related parameters such as dietary intake, food choices and preferences, anthropometry, serum indicators of lipid metabolism and glucose metabolism, vitamin and mineral status, immunological markers, PA, fitness and genetic markers. Data collection from the HELENA-CSS took place in 2006-2007.
All participants were recruited at schools and met the general HELENA-CCS inclusion criteria: age range 12.5-17.5 years, not participating simultaneously in another clinical trial and being free of any acute infection lasting less than 1 week before the inclusion, and having information on weight and height. Ethics committees from each country approved the HELENA-CSS protocols.
For more information on the methodological aspects of the project, please check out the supplemental issue "Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition in Adolescence(HELENA) Study: Methodological aspects" in the International Journal of Obesity 2008; Volume 32, Issue S5 (http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v32/n5s/index.html)
