Workshop: The influence of cooperative bacteria on animal host biology

研讨会：合作细菌对动物宿主生物学的影响爱德华·G·鲁比和玛格丽特·J·麦克福尔-倪夏威夷大学马诺阿分校研讨会的目的是将来自不同学科的国际生物学家小组聚集在一起，研究(I)合作细菌对动物生物学的影响程度，以及(Ii)动物宿主与其本地微生物群之间复杂的有益关系所依据的机制。对动物-细菌相互作用的严格研究是一个由技术驱动的领域，其进展在很大程度上依赖于最近开发的分子工具的应用。有了高通量测序、微阵列技术以及直接和间接检查宿主和共生体遗传学的方法，我们现在可以接近动物与微生物群落形成的持久、合作关系的研究。由于强调病原细菌与动物联系的重要性的生物医学偏见，生物学家对这些不寻常的条件的了解比他们对有益细菌定植的普遍状态了解得多得多。毫不奇怪，这种关注笼罩着我们认识和描述细菌如何影响宿主正常生物学的能力。这次为期5天的研讨会将包括个人陈述和关于合作细菌协会研究前沿的小组讨论。研讨会将特别侧重于这些协会在宿主及其微生物共生体的进化、生态和生化相互作用中所起的作用。与会者将针对特定的领域进行讨论，寻找方法加强这些不同研究领域之间的合作调查，并就这一新兴学科的进一步发展提出建议。与会者还将讨论向其他生物学家、学生和公众介绍有益细菌协会的重要性的具体外展计划。讲习班上得出的结论将通过剑桥大学出版社出版的一本书向科学界传播，该书既包括科学程序，也包括其更广泛的影响。这本书特别致力于总结我们的理解现状，以及综合研究应该采取的未来方向。这些活动将有助于提高当代本科生、研究生和医学生以及普通公众对有益细菌相互作用在动物生物学中所发挥的重要作用的认识。

Workshop: The influence of cooperative bacteria on animal host biologyEdward G. Ruby and Margaret J. McFall-NgaiUniversity of Hawaii, ManoaThe aim of the workshop is to bring together an international group of biologists from a variety of disciplines to consider (i) the extent to which cooperative bacteria influence the biology of animals, and (ii) the mechanisms that underlie the complex beneficial relationships that occur between animal hosts and their native microbiota. The rigorous study of animal-bacterial interactions is a technology-enabled area, the advance of which relies in large part on the application of recently developed molecular tools. With high throughput sequencing, microarray technology, and direct and indirect methods of examining the genetics of the host and symbiont, we can now approach the study of the persistent, cooperative relationships that animals form with microbial communities. Because of the biomedical bias that stresses the importance of pathogenic bacterial associations with animals, biologists know much more about these unusual conditions than they do about the ubiquitous state of beneficial bacterial colonization. Not surprisingly, this focus has clouded our ability to recognize and characterize how bacteria have influenced the normal biology of their hosts.This 5-day workshop-conference will consist of individual presentations and group discussions concerning frontiers in the study of cooperative bacterial associations. The workshop will specifically focus on the roles such associations play in the evolution, ecology, and biochemical interactions of the host and its microbial symbionts. The participants will target specific fields for discussion, look for ways to increase collaborative investigations between these different fields of inquiry, and arrive at recommendations for the further development of this emerging discipline.The participants will also discuss specific outreach projects that will introduce the importance of beneficial bacterial associations to other biologists, students and the general public. The conclusions reached at the workshop will be disseminated to the scientific community through the publication by Cambridge University Press of a book that covers both the scientific proceedings and their broader implications. This volume is specifically devoted to summarizing the present state of our understanding, and the future directions that integrated research should take. Together these activities will contribute to raising the awareness of the current generation of undergraduate, graduate and medical students, as well as the general public, about the vital role played in animal biology by beneficial bacteria interactions.