Institution: I2SYSBIO
Research Groups: Panomics and Evolutionary Systems Microbiology (I2SYSBIO)
Position: Tenured Researcher, CSIC
Home page: https://i2sysbio.es/investigator/58/
Contact email: Christina.Toft@csic.es
BCB Committee: Support BCB Excellence
BCB Community: No communities assigned.
BCB Tools: GWideCodeML, Auto Draft
BCB Services: No services assigned.
Research topics: Model organisms, Molecular evolution, Sequence analysis, Systems Biology, Data Analysis, Data Visualization, Omics, Genomics, Transcriptomics, Bioinformatics Software and Tools, Analysis packages (R, Python, etc.)
Biography: Dr. Christina Toft is a tenured researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and leads a research group at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio). She holds a BSc in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where she received two Gold Medals, and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin, where she investigated genomic adaptations in endosymbiotic bacteria. Her postdoctoral work includes studies on the evolution of Bartonella at Uppsala University and on yeast hybridization and evolutionary mechanisms in the Saccharomycetaceae family at the University of Valencia, supported by EMBO and JdC fellowships.
Dr. Christina Toft’s research explores the molecular mechanisms driving evolutionary innovation, with a focus on gene duplication, hybridization, and symbiosis. By combining theoretical models with experimental evolution, her work uncovers how these processes contribute to genetic robustness and biological complexity. Her group uses genomic tools such as NGS, comparative genomics, and genotype-to-phenotype analysis to investigate how evolutionary signatures translate into functional adaptations, particularly in yeast.
Publications
Álvarez-Rodríguez, B., Velandia-Álvarez, S., Toft, C., & Geller, R. (2024). Mapping the mutational landscape of a full viral proteome reveals distinct profiles of mutation tolerability. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.07.583990
Castiglioni, V. G., Villena-Giménez, A., González-Sánchez, A., Toft, C., Gómez, G. G., & Elena, S. F. (2024). Chronic infection ofCaenorhabditis elegansby Orsay virus induces age-dependent immunity and superinfection exclusion. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.26.630373
Mattenberger, F., Fares, M., Toft, C., & Sabater-Muñoz, B. (2021). The Role of Ancestral Duplicated Genes in Adaptation to Growth on Lactate, a Non-Fermentable Carbon Source for the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 22(22), 12293. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222212293
Sabater-Muñoz, B., Mattenberger, F., Fares, M. A., & Toft, C. (2020). Transcriptional Rewiring, Adaptation, and the Role of Gene Duplication in the Metabolism of Ethanol of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. MSystems, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00416-20
Macías, L. G., Barrio, E., & Toft, C. (2020). GWideCodeML: A Python Package for Testing Evolutionary Hypotheses at the Genome-Wide Level. G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 10(12), 4369–4372. https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.120.401874
Morard, M., Benavent-Gil, Y., Ortiz-Tovar, G., Pérez-Través, L., Querol, A., Toft, C., & Barrio, E. (2020). Genome structure reveals the diversity of mating mechanisms in Saccharomyces cerevisiae x Saccharomyces kudriavzevii hybrids, and the genomic instability that promotes phenotypic diversity. Microbial Genomics, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000333
Morard, M., Ibáñez, C., Adam, A. C., Querol, A., Barrio, E., & Toft, C. (2020). Genomic instability in an interspecific hybrid of the genus Saccharomyces: a matter of adaptability. Microbial Genomics, 6(10). https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000448
Mattenberger, F., Sabater-Muñoz, B., Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2017). The Phenotypic Plasticity of Duplicated Genes inSaccharomyces cerevisiaeand the Origin of Adaptations. G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 7(1), 63–75. https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.116.035329
Ibáñez, C., Pérez-Torrado, R., Morard, M., Toft, C., Barrio, E., & Querol, A. (2017). RNAseq-based transcriptome comparison of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from diverse fermentative environments. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 257, 262–270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2017.07.001
Fares, M. A., Sabater-Muñoz, B., & Toft, C. (2017). Genome Mutational and Transcriptional Hotspots Are Traps for Duplicated Genes and Sources of Adaptations. Genome Biology and Evolution, 9(5), 1229–1240. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evx085
Mattenberger, F., Sabater-Muñoz, B., Toft, C., Sablok, G., & Fares, M. A. (2017). Expression properties exhibit correlated patterns with the fate of duplicated genes, their divergence, and transcriptional plasticity in Saccharomycotina. DNA Research, 24(6), 559–570. https://doi.org/10.1093/dnares/dsx025
Sabater-Muñoz, B., Toft, C., Alvarez-Ponce, D., & Fares, M. A. (2017). Chance and necessity in the genome evolution of endosymbiotic bacteria of insects. The ISME Journal, 11(6), 1291–1304. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.18
Alvarez-Ponce, D., Sabater-Muñoz, B., Toft, C., Ruiz-González, M. X., & Fares, M. A. (2016). Essentiality Is a Strong Determinant of Protein Rates of Evolution during Mutation Accumulation Experiments inEscherichia coli. Genome Biology and Evolution, 8(9), 2914–2927. https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evw205
Keane, O. M., Toft, C., Carretero-Paulet, L., Jones, G. W., & Fares, M. A. (2014). Preservation of genetic and regulatory robustness in ancient gene duplicates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genome Research, 24(11), 1830–1841. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.176792.114
Williams, T. A., Codoñer, F. M., Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2010). Two chaperonin systems in bacterial genomes with distinct ecological roles. Trends in Genetics, 26(2), 47–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2009.11.009
Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2010). Structural Calibration of the Rates of Amino Acid Evolution in a Search for Darwin in Drifting Biological Systems. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27(10), 2375–2385. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msq123
Toft, C., & Andersson, S. G. E. (2010). Evolutionary microbial genomics: insights into bacterial host adaptation. Nature Reviews Genetics, 11(7), 465–475. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2798
Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2009). Selection for Translational Robustness in Buchnera aphidicola, Endosymbiotic Bacteria of Aphids. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 26(4), 743–751. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn301
Fares, M. A., & Toft, C. (2009). Molecular Coevolution and the Three-Dimensionality of Natural Selection. Evolutionary Biology, 237–251. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00952-5_14
Commins, J., Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2009). Computational Biology Methods and Their Application to the Comparative Genomics of Endocellular Symbiotic Bacteria of Insects. Biological Procedures Online, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12575-009-9004-1
Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2008). The Evolution of the Flagellar Assembly Pathway in Endosymbiotic Bacterial Genomes. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 25(9), 2069–2076. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn153
Toft, C., & Fares, M. A. (2006). GRAST: a new way of genome reduction analysis using comparative genomics. Bioinformatics, 22(13), 1551–1561. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btl139
Research lines:
There are no lines of investigation associated with this user.
Funding:
No funded projects.