Maurijn van der Zee
Associate professor
- Name
- Dr. M. van der Zee
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 4885
- m.van.der.zee@biology.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-8728-8646
Maurijn van der Zee is interested in the genetic and developmental basis of evolutionary changes (evo-devo).
More information about Maurijn van der Zee
News
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Adapting to climate change: mutation enables flour beetles to speed up their development -
IBL-research interview: Maurijn van der Zee -
Leiden biologist receives National Zoology Award -
MOOC ‘Evolution Today’ -
Leiden University and Naturalis join forces to launch new ‘Evolution Today’ MOOC
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PhD thesis award for Biologist Chris Jacobs -
How insects conquered land -
Aphid genome unravelled -
18 Veni subsidies for Leiden, 8 for our faculty!
Short curriculum vitae
2012 - Assistant Professor, Leiden University
2010 – 2012 VENI-laureate at the Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht, with Dr. C. Rabouille.
2008 – 2010 EMBO fellow at the Institute of Biology, Leiden University, with Prof. Dr. P.M. Brakefield.
2007 - 2008 Postdoc at the Centre de Génétique Moléculaire of the CNRS, Paris, France, with Dr. G. Balavoine.
2006 - 2007 Postdoc at the Institute for Genetics of the University of Cologne, Germany, with Prof. Dr. D. Tautz.
2002 - 2006 PhD at the Institute for Developmental Biology of the University of Cologne, Germany with Prof. Dr. S. Roth.
2000 – 2001 Work with a VSB stipend at the Institute for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the FoRTH in Heraklion, Greece, with Dr. M. Averof.
2000 MSc Utrecht University
Research
Maurijn van der Zee is interested in the genetic and developmental basis of evolutionary changes (evo-devo).
1. The function of the insect serosa
Insects are the most successful animal group on earth. In all insect eggs, a serosa covers the embryo completely. This membrane is not found in other arthropods and is thought to protect the embryo against hostile terrestrial conditions. This evolutionary innovation might have facilitated the success of insects on land, comparable to the invention of the amnion in amniote eggs. However, serosa-less beetle eggs hatch normally under laboratory conditions (Van der Zee et al., 2005). With RNAi against the gene zerknüllt1, I can delete the serosa and study the serosa-less beetle eggs under different conditions. In this way, the role of the serosa in desiccation resistance or immune defense can be studied. Interestingly, Drosophila does not posses a serosa, but only a small rudimentary amnioserosa. My research could reveal the selective pressures that drove the origin and loss of this evolutionary novelty.
2. Comparative genomics
By comparing the genomic sequence of extant organisms, one can infer genetic changes that have occurred in evolution. I have been involved in the annotation of the genome of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. Excitingly, Tribolium shares several developmental genes with vertebrates, but not with Drosophila. Those genes must have been present in the ancestor of nearly all animals, but were lost in the Drosophila lineage, illustrating the peculiar mode of Drosophila development. I was also member of the Acyrthosiphon pisum (pea aphid) sequencing consortium. Besides winged males and females, aphids generate asexually reproducing females that have their clonally derived offspring within them. One of the interesting features of their genome is that it shows a three fold higher retention rate of gene duplicates than other insect genomes. It is tempting to speculate that - after duplication – the gene copies specialized on a function in one of the morphs (subfunctionalization), thus maintaining this high number of gene duplicates in the aphid genome. Currently, I am involved in the annotation of the genomes of the milkweed bug Oncopeltus fasciatus, the water strider Gerris buenoi and the western flower thrips Frankliniella occidentalis.
Associate professor
- Science
- Instituut Biologie Leiden
- IBL Animal Sciences
- Cheng S., Jacobs C.G., Mogollón Pérez E.A., Chen D., Sanden J.T. van de, Bretscher K.M., Verweij F., Bosman J.S., Hackmann A., Merks R.M.H., Heuvel J. van den & Zee M. van der (2024), A life-history allele of large effect shortens developmental time in a wild insect population, Nature ecology & evolution 8: 70-82.
- Jacobs C.G.C., Hulst R. van der, Chen Y.T., Williamson R.P., Roth S. & Zee M. van der (2022), Immune function of the serosa in hemimetabolous insect eggs, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377(1865): 20210266.
- Dis N.E. van, Zee M. van der, Hut R.A., Wertheim B. & Visser M.E. (2021), Timing of increased temperature sensitivity coincides with nervous system development in winter moth embryos, The Journal of Experimental Biology 224(17): jeb242554.
- Rotenberg D., Baumann A.A., Ben-Mahmoud S., Christiaens O., Dermauw W., Ioannidis P., Jacobs C.G.C., Jentzsch I.V.M., Oliver J.E., Poelchau M.F., Rajarapu S.P., Schneweis D.J., Snoeck S., Taning C.N.T., Wei D., Gamage S.M.K.W., Hughes D.S.T., Murali S.C., Bailey S.T., Bejerman N.E., Holmes C.J., Jennings E.C., Rosendale A.J., Rosselot A., Hervey K., Schneweis B.A., Cheng S., Childers C., Simao F.A., Dietzgen R.G., Chao H., Dinh H., Doddapaneni H.V., Dugan S., Han Y., Lee S.D.L., Muzny D.M., Qu J.X., Worley K.C., Benoit J.B., Friedrich M., Jones J.W., Panfilio K.A., Park Y., Robertson H.M., Smagghe G., Ullman D.E. Zee M. van der, Leeuwen T. van, Veenstra J.A., Waterhouse R.M., Weirauch M.T., Werren J.H., Whitfield A.E., Zdobnov E.M., Gibbs R.A. & Richards S. (2020), Genome-enabled insights into the biology of thrips as crop pests, BMC Biology 18: 142.
- Panfilio K.A., Jentzsch I.M.V., Benoit J.B., Erezyilmaz D., Suzuki Y., Colella S., Robertson H.M., Poelchau M.F., Waterhouse R.M., Ioannidis P., Weirauch M.T., Hughes D.S.T., Murali S.C., Werren J.H., Jacobs C.G.C., Duncan E.J., Armisen D., Vreede B.M.I., Baa-Puyoulet P., Berger C.S., Chang C.C., Chao H., Chen M.J.M., Chen Y.T., Childers C.P., Chipman A.D., Cridge A.G., Crumiere A.J.J., Dearden P.K., Didion E.M., Dinh H., Doddapaneni H.V., Dolan A., Dugan S., Extavour C.G., Febvay G., Friedrich M., Ginzburg N., Han Y., Heger P., Holmes C.J., Horn T., Hsiao Y.M., Jennings E.C., Johnston J.S., Jones T.E., Jones J.W., Khila A., Koelzer S., Kovacova V., Leask M., Lee S.L., Lee C.Y., Lovegrove M.R., Lu H.L., Lu Y., Moore P.J., Munoz-Torres M.C., Muzny D.M., Palli S.R., Parisot N., Pick L., Porter M.L., Qu J.X., Refki P.N., Richter R., Rivera-Pomar R., Rosendale A.J., Roth S., Sachs L., Santos M.E., Seibert J., Sghaier E., Shukla J.N., Stancliffe R.J., Tidswell O., Traverso L., Zee M. van der, Viala S., Worley K.C., Zdobnov E.M., Gibbs R.A. & Richards S. (2019), Molecular evolutionary trends and feeding ecology diversification in the Hemiptera, anchored by the milkweed bug genome, Genome Biology 20: 64.
- Drongelen R. van, Vazquez-Faci T., Huijben T.A.P.M., Zee M. van der & Idema T. (2018), Mechanics of epithelial tissue formation, Journal of Theoretical Biology 454: 182-189.
- Armisen D., Rajakumar R., Friedrich M., Benoit J.B., Robertson H.M., Panfilio K.A., Ahn S., Poelchau M.F., Chao H., Dinh H., Doddapaneni Harsha V., Dugan S., Gibbs R.A., Hughes D.S.T., Han Y., Lee S.L., Murali S.C., Muzny D.M., Qu J., Worley K.C., Munoz-Torres M., Abouheif E., Bonneton F., Chen T., Chiang L.M., Childers C.P., Cridge A.G., Crumiere A.J.J., Decaras A., Didion E.M., Duncan E.J., Elpidina E.N., Fave M.J., Finet C., Jacobs C.G.C., Jarvela A.M.C., Jennings E.C., Jones J.W., Lesoway M.P., Lovegrove M.R., Martynov A., Oppert B., Lillico-Ouachour A., Rajakumar A., Refki P.N., Rosendale A.J., Santos M.E., Toubiana W., Van der Zee M., Jentzsch I.M.V., Lowman A.V., Viala S., Richards S. & Khila A. (2018), The genome of the water strider Gerris buenoi reveals expansions of gene repertoires associated with adaptations to life on the water, BMC Genomics 19: 832.
- Jacobs C.G.C., Braak N., Lamers G.E.M. & Zee M. van der (2015), Elucidation of the serosal cuticle machinery in the beetle Tribolium by RNA sequencing and functional analysis of Knickkopf1, Retroactive and Laccase2, Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 60: 7-12.
- Zee M. van der, Benton M.A., Vazquez-Faci T., Lamers G.E.M., Jacobs C.G.C. & Rabouille C. (2015), Innexin7a forms junctions that stabilize the basal membrane during cellularization of the blastoderm in Tribolium castaneum, Development 142(12): 2173-2183.
- Jacobs C.G.C., Wang Y., Vogel H., Vilcinskas A., Zee M. van der & Rozen D.E. (2014), Egg survival is reduced by grave-soil microbes in the carrion beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, BMC Evolutionary Biology 14: 208.
- Jacobs C.G.C., Spaink H.P. & Zee M. van der (2014), The extraembryonic serosa is a frontier epithelium providing the insect egg with a full-range innate immune response, eLife 3: 04111.
- Zee M. van der, Armitage S. & Moussian B. (2014), From Tübingen to York: Molecular Biology and Ecology of the Cuticle, Antenna 18: 30.
- Chipman A.D., Ferrier D.E.K., Brena C., Qu J., Hughes D.S.T., Schroeder R., Torres-Oliva M., Znassi N., Jiang H., Almeida F.C., Alonso C.R., Apostolou Z., Aqrawi P., Arthur W., Barna J.C.J., Blankenburg K.P., Brites D., Capella-Gutierrez S., Coyle M., Dearden P.K., Du Pasquier L., Duncan E.J., Ebert D., Eibner C., Erikson G., Evans P.D., Extavour C.G., Francisco L., Gabaldon T., Gillis W.J., Goodwin-Horn E.A., Green J.E., Griffiths-Jones S., Grimmelikhuijzen C.J.P., Gubbala S., Guigo R., Han Y., Hauser F., Havlak P., Hayden L., Helbing S., Holder M., Hui J.H.L., Hunn J.P., Hunnekuhl V.S., Jackson L., Javaid M., Jhangiani S.N., Jiggins F.M., Jones T.E., Kaiser T.S., Kalra D., Kenny N.J., Korchina V., Kovar C.L., Kraus F.B., Lapraz F., Lee S.L., Lv J., Mandapat C., Manning G., Mariotti M., Mata R., Mathew T., Neumann T., Newsham I., Ngo D.N., Ninova M., Okwuonu G., Ongeri F., Palmer W.J., Patil S., Patraquim P., Pham C., Pu L.L., Putman N.H., Rabouille C., Ramos O.M., Rhodes A.C., Robertson H.E., Robertson H.M., Ronshaugen M., Rozas J., Saada N., Sanchez-Gracia A., Scherer S.E., Schurko A.M., Siggens K.W., Simmons D., Stief A., Stolle E., Telford M.J., Tessmar-Raible K., Thornton R., Van der Zee M., Von Haeseler A., Williams J.M., Willis J.H., Wu Y., Zou X., Lawson D., Muzny D.M., Worley K.C., Gibbs R.A., Akam M. & Richards S. (2014), The first myriapod genome sequence reveals conservative arthropod gene content in the centipede Strigamia maritima, PLoS Biology 12(11): e1002005.
- Jacobs C.G.C., Rezende G.L., Lamers G.E.M. & Zee M. van der (2013), The extraembryonic serosa protects the insect egg against desiccation, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1764): 20131082.
- Jacobs C.G.C. & Zee M. van der (2013), Immune competence in insect eggs depends on the extraembryonic serosa, Developmental and Comparative Immunology 41(2): 263-269.
- Zee M. van der (2011), Waarom hebben we zoveel organen dubbel?. De Pers.
- Shigenobu S., Bickel R.D., Brisson J.A., Butts T., Chang C., Christiaens O., Davis G.K., Duncan E.J., Ferrier D.E.K., Iga M., Janssen R., Lin G., Lu H., McGregor A.P., Miura T., Smagghe G., Smith J.M., Zee M. van der, Velarde R., Wilson M.J., Dearden P.K. & Stern D.L. (2010), Comprehensive survey of developmental genes in the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum: frequent lineage-specific duplications and losses of developmental genes, Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 19(s2): 47-62.