Svitlana V. Serga

• PhD
• MSCA Fellow at French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE)

Climate change and globalization are accelerating biological invasions, making it crucial to understand how species adapt in new environments to improve management strategies. Genomic data can provide valuable insights into adaptation through Genotype-Environment Association (GEA) studies, which identify genes and biological processes tied to invas...

Interactions between a host organism and its associated microbiota, including symbiotic bacteria, play a crucial role in host adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Antarctica provides a unique environment for the establishment and maintenance of symbiotic relationships. One of the most extensively studied symbiotic bacteria in invertebra...

Large scale genomic resources can place genetic variation into an ecologically informed context. To advance our understanding of the population genetics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , we present an expanded release of the community-generated population genomics resource Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST 2.0; https://dest.bi...

Climate change and globalization are accelerating biological invasions, making it crucial to understand how species adapt in new environments to improve management strategies. Genomic data can provide valuable insights into adaptation through Genotype-Environment Association (GEA) studies, which identify genes and biological processes tied to invas...

Belgica antarctica Jacobs (Diptera: Chironomidae) is the only endemic insect found in the Antarctic Peninsula region and has stimulated considerable research interest. Due to recent rapid changes in regional climate in Antarctica, there is growing interest in studying the responses of this species to environmental changes, in particular at the chro...

In Drosophila, endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia were first described in the late 1980s as a bacterial agent causing cytoplasmic incompatibility in Drosophila simulans. Since then, Wolbachia have been monitored regularly in American and Australian natural populations of these species. Based on differences in the bacteria’s prevalence in these popula...

Wolbachia is one of the most common endosymbiotic bacteria, infecting between 20 to 76% of all arthropod species. It is found in many species of Drosophila, but accurate estimates continue to update. The bacterium is transmitted predominantly transovarially, however cases of horizontal transmission are also documented. In arthropods to ensure its d...

Belgica antarctica is one of the two native chironomid species of the Antarctic Peninsula. In this species, adult males and females are considerably different, yet the question of larval sex differences in morphometric parameters remains unanswered. In this paper, we analyze five morphometric parameters: head capsule length, head capsule width, man...

Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems host a relatively small number of species. As a result, they are extremely sensitive to climate changes and other influences. The endemic Antarctic insect, Belgica antarctica is particularly interesting, especially in the context of its potential use as a model organism for studying the influence of climate changes....

Purpose: The gene BRCA1 plays a key role in DNA repair in breast and ovarian cell lines and this is considered one of target tumor suppressor genes in same line of cancers. The 5382insC mutation is among the most frequently detected in patients (Eastern Europe) with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In Ukraine, there is not enough awareness of...

The ecosystems of the Antarctic Peninsula are being seriously affected by emergence of invasive species and increased tourism activity in the region, underscoring the importance of monitoring of the local habitats. Antarctic midge Belgica antarctica Jacobs, 1900 (Diptera: Chironomidae) is endemic to the Antarctic Peninsula mainland and adjacent isl...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome data sets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last years. A major challenge is the integration of disparate data sets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipeli...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last years. A major challenge is the integration of disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipeline...

Wolbachia are intracellular endosymbiotic bacteria in arthropods. Rapid spread of the Wolbachia wRi variant, which causes high levels of cytoplasmic incompatibility, has been reported in natural populations of Drosophila simulans in California and Australia. Fluctuations in the infection rates are of great interest and are largely unexplored in pop...

Belgica antarctica Jacobs, 1900 (Diptera: Chironomidae) is endemic to Maritime Antarctica. Over centuries of research on this insect enough information has been accumulated about its biology and ecology, physiology and biochemistry, genetics and life cycle details. Significant advances in the study of B. antarctica were: a) its genome being complet...

In this study, we examined species diversity of Drosophilidae in Ukrainian and Polish natural populations in 2019. It was identified 15 species the same species of Drosophilidae for Ukraine and Poland: D. melanogaster, D. simulans, D. subobscura, D. obscura, D. immigrans, D. busckii, D. repleta, D. hydei, D. transversa, D. funebris, D. phalerata, D...

To advance our understanding of adaptation to temporally varying selection pressures, we identified signatures of seasonal adaptation occurring in parallel among Drosophila melanogaster populations. Specifically, we estimated allele frequencies genome-wide from flies sampled early and late in the growing season from 20 widely dispersed populations....

Belgica antarctica — двокрила комаха з родини Chironomidae, життєвий циклу якої проходить в екстремальних умовах Антарктичного півострова. Останні популяційні дослідження за морфометричними ознаками цієї комахи проводились 40 років тому (Atchley, Hillburn, 1979). Для дослідження морфометричної мінливості головної капсули личинок B.antarctica було о...

Belgica antarctica is endemic to the Antarctic Peninsula. This species can be considered as a model organism for the studies of adaptation mechanisms and successful survival strategies in the harsh conditions of Antarctica. The elucidation of the above mechanisms is provided, inter alia, by monitoring studies at various levels (from molecular to po...

Belgica antarctica (Diptera: Chironomidae), a brachypterous midge endemic to the maritime Antarctic, was first described in 1900. Over more than a century of study, a vast amount of information has been compiled on the species (3 750 000 Google search results as of January 10, 2021), encompassing its ecology and biology, life cycle and reproduction...

Drosophila melanogaster is an important model for antiviral immunity in arthropods, but very few DNA viruses have been described from the family Drosophilidae. This deficiency limits our opportunity to use natural host-pathogen combinations in experimental studies, and may bias our understanding of the Drosophila virome. Here we report fourteen DNA...

Wolbachia is an intracellular symbiont that infects a large number of arthropod species, ensuring its success in populations by influencing host reproduction. The wMel strain in Drosophila melanogaster does not cause any strong modifications of sexual reproduction. Consequently, it is not clear how the high infection rates of the bacterium in popul...

Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last 20 years. A major challenge is the integration of these disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic...

Ukraine is on the invasion front of spotted-wing Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura, 1931) spreading in Europe. Despite this globally important pest was confirmed only on the southernmost tip of its territory, recently published species distribution models expect its occurrence also in other Ukrainian regions. Therefore, we conducted two-year monitoring...

Ukraine is on the invasion front of spotted-wing Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura, 1931) spreading in Europe. Despite this globally important pest was confirmed only on the southernmost tip of its territory, recently published species distribution models expect its occurrence also in other Ukrainian regions. Therefore, we conducted two-year monitoring...

Genetic variation is the fuel of evolution, with standing genetic variation especially important for short-term evolution and local adaptation. To date, studies of spatio-temporal patterns of genetic variation in natural populations have been challenging, as comprehensive sampling is logistically difficult, and sequencing of entire populations cost...

The endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia are widespread in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster, which is a cosmopolitan and synanthropic species. Various aspects of Wolbachia infection are studied in many arthropod species, including fruit flies. However, the influence of climatic factors on the level of Wolbachia infection in natural popula...

Background DNA repair gene variants play an important role in the development of different types of cancer, especially environmentally induced cancer. The X-ray repair cross-complementing 1 (XRCC1) gene is a component of the base excision repair (BER) pathway and is an alternative pathway for DNA double-strand break repair. XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorp...

In this study we characterized allele frequencies of 15 autosomal STR loci, including 13 CODIS (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1P0, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818, FGA) and two additional loci (D2S1338 and D19S433) in 200 citizens of Kyiv region using an AmpFlSTR Identifiler Plus Kit. No deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg e...

Aim. To determine the frequency of TP53 polymorphic variants in bladder cancer patients and define possible association of this polymorphism with a bladder cancer in Ukrainians patients. Methods. The genotypes of TP53 gene at codon 72 were detected by PCR with allele specific primers. We investigated Arg72Pro polymorphism in 114 DNA samples of pati...

Aim. Mutations in BRCA1/2 genes are known to increase the risk of human breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer. In Ukraine only mutations in woman BRCA1/2 were studied, thus the situation with these diseases related to disturbance of these genes in Ukrainian men remains poorly explored. 6174delT is a frameshift mutation and is results...

The Drosophila melanogaster P-transposable element is an example of mobile DNA transferred horizontally and known to have spread globally over the last 50-60 years. In Drosophila, the P-element causes a syndrome known as 'P-M hybrid dysgenesis' that obstructs normal ovary development in the female progeny of susceptible populations. Despite extensi...

The study of Drosohilidae species diversity in Poland and Ukraine carried out. Drosophilla busckii, Drosophilla hydei, Drosophilla immigrans, Drosophilla melanogaster, Drosophilla obscura, Drosophilla phalerata, Drosophilla repleta, Drosophilla simulans, Drosophilla subobscura, Drosophilla suzukii, Drosophilla testacea were the most common species...

Local adaptation in response to spatially varying selection pressures is widely recognized as a ubiquitous feature for many organisms. In contrast, our understanding of local adaptation to temporally varying selection pressures is limited. To advance our understanding of local adaptation to temporally varying selection pressures, we studied genomic...

Genetic variation is the fuel of evolution. However, analyzing dynamics of evolutionary change in natural populations is challenging, genome sequencing of entire populations remains costly and comprehensive sample collection logistically challenging. To tackle this issue and to define relevant spatial and temporal scales of variation for a populati...

Aim. The study was performed to investigate the relationship between Wolbachia infection and phenotypes that distinct from wild-type of Drosophila melanogaster from different localities in Ukraine including those from Chornobyl Exclusion Zone during 2013-2014. Methods. We have established isofemale lines from populations: Uman', Inkerman, Odesa, Va...

Lately, global climate change has been observed on the planet, causing changes in the biological diversity both in global and in local contexts. In addition, the distribution of Drosophilidae species in some regions of Europe still need following investigations. In particular, until recently, the Drosophilidae fauna Poland has been represented only...

Ovarian cancer is the seventh most common cancer in women worldwide and the leading cause of gynecological malignant diseases-related deaths in women. The most significant risk factor for ovarian cancer is an inherited genetic mutation in one of two genes: breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1) or breast cancer gene 2 (BRCA2). The germline mutation c.5266dup...

When studying aging, an important issue is that it is a complex process influenced by a large number of environmental and genetic factors. The effects of these factors are difficult to investigate because they influence and modify each other. Therefore, it is difficult to examine these factors using complex mammalian models like rodents. Thereby, a...

Drosophila suzukii, commonly known as the spotted-wing Drosophila, is an invasive polyphagous fruit pest, which has emerged as a global threat to agriculture in the Americas and in Europe. Due to the rapid spread, great economic losses and its pest behavior, D. suzukii represents a powerful model for invasion biology and pest management studies. Ho...

Microbial communities are known to significantly affect various fitness components and survival of their insect hosts, including Drosophila. The composition of symbiotic microbiota has been shown to change with the host’s aging. It is unclear whether these changes are caused by the aging process or, vice versa, they affect the host’s aging and long...

Wolbachia природних популяцій Drosophila melanogaster з радіоактивно забруднених та умовно чистих локалітетів України. Даний показник виявився нижчим у популяції з найбільш радіоактивно забрудненого локалітету (Янів; 13,5 мкЗВ/год), у порівнянні з іншими 6 дослідженими природними популяціями України (з локалітетів Поліське, Водойма-охолоджувач ЧАЕС...

Wolbachia природних популяцій Drosophila melanogaster з радіоактивно забруднених та умовно чистих локалітетів України. Даний показник виявився нижчим у популяції з найбільш радіоактивно забрудненого локалітету (Янів; 13,5 мкЗВ/год), у порівнянні з іншими 6 дослідженими природними популяціями України (з локалітетів Поліське, Водойма-охолоджувач ЧАЕС...

Until recently, only a few works were devoted to the drosophila fauna of Ukraine and Belarus, with almost complete lack of the latest data on this issue from Poland. The drosophila fauna of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus generally resembles a well-known fauna of the Paleo-Arctic region. One of the most interesting results of this study is the first in...

The Drosophila melanogaster P transposable element provides one of the best cases of horizontal transfer of a mobile DNA sequence in eukaryotes. Invasion of natural populations by the P element has led to a syndrome of phenotypes known as “P-M hybrid dysgenesis” that emerges when strains differing in their P element composition mate and produce off...

Spontaneous mutations are thought to have a stable rate for a given species. If non-adaptive, they appear at low frequencies and are governed by drift. However, environmental factors have been reported to cause spread of non-adaptive mutations in populations, governed by mechanisms, such as genetic assimilation. In the present study, we report a si...

Objective: To estimate frequencies of polymorphic variants of TP53 codon 72 in the Ukrainian population. Materials and methods: We determined the allele frequencies for 148 healthy people. Genotyping was performed by allele specific polymerase chain reaction. Results: We identified 31 individuals (20.9 %) with Arg/Arg genotype, Arg/Pro genotyp...

Germ-line mutations in several genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are known to increase the risk of breast cancer. These heritable mutations are unequally represented among populations with different ethnic background due to founder effects and thereby contribute to differences in breast cancer rates in different populations. The BRCA1 mutation c.5266...

The fruit flies Drosophila simulans Sturtevant, 1919 and Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, 1830 are sibling species that occupy similar niches. However, unlike D.simulans, D.melanogaster has spread far beyond tropical and subtropical regions deep into temperate climate zones. A number of invasion events by D.simulans into temperate climate zones have...

Microbiota is known to interact with metabolic and regulatory networks of the host affecting its fitness. The composition of microbiota was shown to change throughout the host aging. Such changes can be likely caused by aging process or, vice versa, changes in microbiota composition can impact the aging process. It is suggested that microbiota play...

Alphaproteobacteria of the genus Wolbachia are common intracellular endosymbionts of a variety of insects. Their successful spread over a vast range of host taxa is often attributed to selective advantages conferred by the bacteria to infected individuals. Among the known diversity of Wolbachia pipientis infecting Drosophila melanogaster, a single...

The endosymbiotic bacteria Wolbachia are widely spread in natural populations of arthropods all over the world. This phenomenon, according to current views, may be due either to so-called reproductive parasitism (modification of sexual reproduction) or to mutualistic interrelationships with the host organism, since the bacteria are transmitted tran...

Determination and identification of the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia were done for 14 natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster from Ukraine in which typing of the bacterium had not been done before. Identification was performed using PCR, and typing was done by aligning the sequences of 16S rRNA and wsp gene fragments. Presence of bacter...

The influence of endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia on the recombination processes in the sex chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster on the region between white and cut genes has been studied. The analysis of the crossing-over frequency in various variants of strain crossing, infected and noninfected, with bacteria has been carried out. The results h...

Aim. To identify the Ame17 polymorphic variants for round goby Neogobius melanostomus from Northwest Black Sea region. Methods. We determined polymorphism for 102 individuals of round goby. Genotyping was performed by PCR-analysis of Ame17 as described by Brown et al., 2008. The PCR-amplified DNA products were subjected to electrophoresis in 8 % po...