Mi investigación se centra en el estudio sobre el origen y la evolución temprana de la vida, en especial en la reconstrucción de genomas ancestrales y la evolución de rutas metabólicas esenciales, por medio de genómica comparada y herramientas bioinformáticas.

Publicaciones

Cabañas N, Becerra A, Romero D, Govezensky T, Espinosa-Aguirre J,
Camacho-Carranza R.
Repetitive DNA profile of the amphibian mitogenome
BMC Bioinformatics, (2020) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-020-3532-8

Jácome R, Campillo J, Ponce De Leon S, Becerra A, Lazcano A.
Sofosbuvir as a potential alternative to treat the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic
Scientific Report (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66440-9

Ortiz-Álvarez J, Becerra A, Méndez-Tenorio A, Murcia-Garzón J, Villa-Tanaca L, Hernández-Rodríguez C.
Phylogeny, evolution, and potential ecological relationship of cytochrome CYP52 enzymes in Saccharomycetales yeasts
Scientific Report (2020) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67200-5

Becerra A.
The semi-enzymatic origin of metabolic pathways: inferring a very early stage of the evolution of life
J Mol Evol (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-021-09994-0

Cisneros-Martínez A, Becerra A. and Lazcano A.
Ancient gene duplications in RNA viruses revealed by protein tertiary structure comparisons
Virus Evolution (2021) veab019, https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veab019

A. Cruz-González, I. Muñoz-Velasco, W. Cottom-Salas, A. Becerra, J.A. Campillo-Balderas, R. Hernández-Morales, A. Vázquez-Salazar, R. Jácome and A. Lazcano. Structural analysis of viral ExoN domains reveals multiple polyphyletic hijacking events.
PLoS ONE (2021) 16(3): e0246981. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246981

Álvarez-Lugo A. and Becerra A.
The Role of Gene Duplication in the Evolution of Enzyme Function.
Frontiers in Genetics (2021) https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2021.641817

B. Moguel, L. Pérez, L. D. Alcaraz, J. Blaz, M. Caballero, I. Muñoz-Velasco, A. Becerra, J. P. Laclette, B. Ortega-Guerrero, C. S. Romero-Oliva, S. Lozano-García, L. Herrera-Estrella
Holocene life and microbiome profiling in ancient tropical Lake Chalco, Mexico
Scientific Reports (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92981-8

Estrada A, Suárez-Díaz E, Becerra A.
Reconstructing the Last Common Ancestor: epistemological and empirical challenges
Acta Biotheoretica (2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-022-09439-1

Becerra A, Muñoz-Velasco I, Aguilar-Cámara A, Cottom-Salas W, Cruz-González A, Vázquez-Salazar, Hernández-Morales R, Jácome R, Campillo-Balderas J, Lazcano A.
Two Short Low Complexity Regions (LCRs) are Hallmark Sequences of the Delta SARS-CoV- 2 Variant Spike Protein.
Scientific Reports 12, 936 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-04976-8

Rodrigo Jácome, José Alberto Campillo-Balderas, Arturo Becerra, Antonio Lazcano
Structural analysis of monomeric RNA-dependent polymerases revisited
Journal Molecular Evolution (2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-022-10059-z

Abraham Madariaga-Mazóna, José J. Navejas, Arturo Becerra, José Alberto
Campillo-Balderas, Ricardo Hernández-Morales, Rodrigo Jácome, Antonio Lazcano, Karina Martinez-Mayorga. Subtle structural differences of nucleotide analogs may affect SARS-CoV-2 RNAdependent RNA polymerase inhibitory activity.
Computational, Structural and Biotechnology 20, 5181 (2022) http://doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2022.08.056

Álvarez-Lugo A. and Becerra A.
The Fate of Duplicated Enzymes in Prokaryotes: The Case of Isomerases
Journal Molecular Evolution (2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-022-10085-x

Campillo Balderas JA, Lazcano A., Cottom-Salas W., Jacome R., Becerra A.
Pangenomic analysis of Nucleo-Cytoplasmic Large DNA viruses. I The phylogenetic distribution of conserved oxygen-dependent enzymes reveals a capture-gene process.
Journal Molecular Evolution (2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-023-10126-z

Cisneros-Martínez AM, Rodriguez-Cruz UE, Alcaraz LD, Becerra A, Eguiarte LE, Souza V.
Comparative evaluation of bioinformatic tools for virus-host prediction and their application to a highly diverse community in the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin, PLOS ONE (2024) 19(2): e0291402. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291402

Goldman, A.D., Becerra, A. A New View of the Last Universal Common Ancestor.
Journal Molecular Evolution (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-024-10193-w

Wolfgang Cottom-Salas, Arturo Becerra, Antonio Lazcano.
RNA or DNA? Revisiting the chemical nature of the cenancestral genome
Journal Molecular Evolution (2024) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-024-10194-9

Becerra, A., Goldman, A.D. Introduction to the Special Issue on Early Evolution and the Last Common Ancestor. J Mol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-024-10208-6

Circuito de Posgrado, Ciudad Universitaria
Alcaldía Coyoacán, C.P. 04510, México, CDMX

55 5623 7006
mdcbq@posgrado.unam.mx