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Louise Johnson

Email:
l.j.johnson@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 4432
Job title:
Associate Professor

Responsibilities:

Lecturer

Areas of interest

Evolution
Genetics
Intragenomic conflict
Genomics
Levels of selection
Genetic systems
Cancer evolution

Teaching

Part 1: Pathology: Introduction to Human Disease, Exploiters and Exploited
Part 2: Evolutionary Biology, Animal, Plant and Microbial Development
Part 3: Evolutionary Genetics and Phylogeny, Seminars in Biology , Mechanisms for Microbial Function, Research Project Supervision

Research centres and groups

International Collaborators

Prof. Paul Rainey FRSNZ, New Zealand Institute of Advanced Study and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, New Zealand
Prof. James Cook, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Dr Tek Tay, CSIRO, Australia

National Collaborators

Prof. Michael Brockhurst, University of York
Prof. Richard Nichols, Queen Mary University, London
Dr. James Cotton, Sanger Centre, Cambridge
Dr. Steve Le Comber, Queen Mary University, London

Research projects

Experimental evolution of the genetic code
Multilevel selection in cancer and intragenomic conflicts
Evolution of genetic systems, particularly breeding systems
Funding from NERC and the Leverhulme Trust

Background

Member of:

School Athena SWAN Committee
University-wide committee to promote undergraduate research

Esteem Factors

Member of Steering Committee of NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility
Editorial Board, Journal of Evolutionary Biology and Mobile Genetic Elements
Plenary Speaker, "Genomic Consequences of Unconventional Sex", University of Cape Town

Selected publications

Pre 2006

L.J. Johnson, J. Antonovics and M. E. Hood. The evolution of intratetrad mating rates. Evolution 59: 2525-2532 (2005).

L. J. Johnson, V. Koufopanou, M. R. Goddard, R. Hetherington, S Schaeffer and A. Burt. Population genetics of the wild yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus. Genetics 166: 43-52 (2004).

L. J. Johnson and J. F. Y. Brookfield. Evolution of spatial expression pattern. Evolution and Development 5: 593-599 (2003).

L. J. Johnson and J. F. Y. Brookfield. Evolutionary dynamics of a selfishly spreading gene that stimulates sexual reproduction in a partially sexual population. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 15: 42-48 (2002).

Impact, Enterprise and Outreach

Involved in outreach events to schools and the public including the Wellcome-funded "I'm a Scientist" and L'Oreal / ZSL "Soap Box Science"
Contributor to "The Open Laboratory" popular science anthology

Publications

Kempster, C. , Butler, G. , Kuznecova, E. , Taylor, K. , Kriek, N. , Little, G. , Sowa, M. , Sage, T. , Johnson, L. ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Gibbins, J. ORCID: 0000-0002-0372-5352 , Pollitt, A. (2022) Fully automated platelet differential interference contrast image analysis via deep learning. Scientific Reports , 12 ISSN: 2045-2322 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08613-2

Butler, G. , Keeton, S. , Johnson, L. ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Dash, P. (2020) A phenotypic switch in the dispersal strategy of breast cancer cells selected for metastatic colonization. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 287 (1940). ISSN: 0962-8452 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2523
Cascant-Lopez, E. , Crosthwaite, S. , Johnson, L. , Harrison, R. (2020) No evidence that homologs of key circadian clock genes direct circadian programs of development or mRNA abundance in Verticillium dahliae. Frontiers in Microbiology , 11 (1977). ISSN: 1664-302X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01977
Wass, A. , Butler, G. , Taylor, T. , Dash, P. , Johnson, L. (2020) Cancer cell lines show high heritability for motility but not generation time. Royal Society Open Science , 7 (4). ISSN: 2054-5703 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191645

Taylor, T. , Wass, A. , Johnson, L. , Dash, P. (2017) Resource competition promotes tumour expansion in experimentally evolved cancer. BMC Evolutionary Biology , 17 ISSN: 1471-2148 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-1117-6

Taylor, T. , Mulley, G. , McGuffin, L. , Johnson, L. , Brockhurst, M. , Arseneault, T. , Silby, M. , Jackson, R. (2015) Evolutionary rewiring of bacterial regulatory networks. Microbial Cell , 2 (7). pp. 256-258. ISSN: 2311-2638 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.15698/mic2015.07.215
Taylor, T. , Mulley, G. , Dills, A. , Alsohim, A. , McGuffin, L. ORCID: 0000-0003-4501-4767 , Studholme, D. , Silby, M. , Brockhurst, M. , Johnson, L. ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Jackson, R. (2015) Evolutionary resurrection of flagellar motility via rewiring of the nitrogen regulation system. Science , 347 (6225). pp. 1014-1017. ISSN: 0036-8075 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1259145

Alsohim, A. , Taylor, T. , Barrett, G. , Gallie, J. , Zhang, X. , Altamirano-Junqueira, A. , Johnson, L. , Rainey, P. , Jackson, R. (2014) The biosurfactant viscosin produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 aids spreading motility and plant growth promotion. Environmental Microbiology , 16 (7). pp. 2267-2281. ISSN: 1462-2920 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.12469

Taylor, T. , Johnson, L. , Jackson, R. , Brockhurst, M. , Dash, P. (2013) First steps in experimental cancer evolution. Evolutionary Applications , 6 (3). pp. 535-548. ISSN: 1752-4571 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eva.12041

Johnson, L. , Cotton, J. , Lichtenstein, C. , Elgar, G. , Nichols, R. , Polly, P. , Le Comber, S. (2011) Stops making sense: translational trade-offs and stop codon reassignment. BMC Evolutionary Biology , 11 (1). ISSN: 1471-2148 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-227
Jackson, R. , Johnson, L. , Clarke, S. , Arnold, D. (2011) Bacterial pathogen evolution: breaking news. Trends in Genetics , 27 (1). pp. 32-40. ISSN: 0168-9525 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2010.10.001

Johnson, L. (2010) Pseudogene rescue: an adaptive mechanism of codon reassignment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology , 23 (8). pp. 1623-1630. ISSN: 1010-061X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02027.x
Johnson, L. and Tricker, P. (2010) Epigenomic plasticity within populations: its evolutionary significance and potential. Heredity , 105 (1). pp. 113-121. ISSN: 0018-067X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2010.25
Johnson, L. , Giraud, T. , Anderson, R. , Hood, M. (2010) The impact of genome defense on mobile elements in Microbotryum. Genetica , 138 (3). pp. 313-319. ISSN: 1573-6857 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10709-009-9419-2

Johnson, . (2008) Selfish genetic elements favor the evolution of a distinction between soma and germline. Evolution , 62 (8). pp. 2122-2124. ISSN: 0014-3820 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00433.x
Johnson, . (2008) Transposon silencing: the extraordinary epigenetics of a transposon trap. Heredity , 100 (1). pp. 5-5. ISSN: 1365-2540 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.hdy.6801064

Johnson, . (2007) The genome strikes back: The evolutionary importance of defence against mobile elements. Evolutionary Biology , 34 (3-4). pp. 121-129. ISSN: 0071-3260 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-007-9012-5
Antonovics, . , Abbate, . , Baker, . , Daley, . , Hood, . , Jenkins, . , Johnson, . , Murray, . , Panjeti, . , Rudolf, . , Sloan, . , Vondrasek, . (2007) Evolution by any other name: antibiotic resistance and avoidance of the E-word. PLoS Biology , 5 (2). pp. e30. ISSN: 1544-9173

Johnson, . and Brookfield, . (2006) A test of the master gene hypothesis for interspersed repetitive DNA sequences. Molecular Biology and Evolution , 23 (2). pp. 235-9. ISSN: 0737-4038 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msj034
Brookfield, . and Johnson, . (2006) The evolution of mobile DNAs: when will transposons create phylogenies that look as if there is a master gene?. Genetics , 173 (2). pp. 1115-23. ISSN: 0016-6731 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1534/genetics.104.027219