FIBR: BeeSpace - An Interactive Environment for Analyzing Nature and Nurture in Societal Roles

生物学中最重要的问题之一是行为的起源：先天还是后天？这项研究将利用基因组生物学将行为研究从这种二分法的束缚中解放出来。新的模式是，包括其他个体在内的环境(“后天”)通过协调动物一生中的基因表达来影响遗传的基因组(“自然”)。该项目将以西蜂为模式生物，在史无前例的全基因组规模上分析社会行为。蜜蜂生活在一个复杂的社会中，由与年龄相关的劳动分工所支配，每个人在她的一生中扮演着许多角色。基因遗传和环境条件都决定了蜜蜂扮演什么角色，以及她何时扮演这个角色。这项生物学研究将为所有社会行为生成一个独特的基因表达数据库，记录数百个人的大脑基因表达，每个人都有特定的社会角色。这些微阵列实验利用了最近测序的基因组，并得到了最先进的统计数据的支持。信息学研究将开发一个交互环境来分析所有与蜜蜂社会行为相关的信息源。这些数据库包括蜜蜂和相关生物的基因组数据库，链接到与昆虫行为相关的完整科学文献。新的文本挖掘技术将把分子描述与来自生理学、行为学、神经科学和进化的信息结合起来。BeeSpace环境将使用户能够在一个统一的空间中导航不同的数据库和文献来源，以进行假设开发和验证。该软件系统将超越可搜索的数据库，使用统计文献分析来发现基因和行为之间的功能关系。这项研究将使所有研究蜜蜂基因的科学家都生活在综合生物学的前沿，在综合生物学中，生物技术可以进行常规的表达分析，生物信息学可以不受现有类别的限制进行功能分析。功能分析互动环境的更广泛影响将在研究蜜蜂和相关生物体的国际实验室社区中进行测试。BeeSpace的外展将提供研究生和本科生层面的综合研究和教育体验，以及高中和中学层面的培训课程和少数族裔外展。

One of the most important questions in biology is the origin of behavior: nature or nurture? This research will use genomic biology to liberate the study of behavior from the shackles of this dichotomy. The new paradigm is that the environment ("nurture"), which includes other individuals, impacts an inherited genome ("nature") by orchestrating gene expression during the lifetime of the animal. This project will analyze social behavior on an unprecedented whole-genome scale, using Apis mellifera the Western honey bee, as the model organism. Honey bees live in a complex society governed by an age-related division of labor, with each individual assuming many roles during her lifetime. Both genetic heredity and environmental conditions determine what role a bee performs, and when she performs it. The biology research will generate a unique database of gene expressions for all social behavior, recording brain gene expression for hundreds of individuals, each with a specific societal role. These microarray experiments utilize the recently sequenced genome, supported by state-of-the-art statistics. The informatics research will develop an interactive environment to analyze all information sources relevant to bee social behavior. These include genome databases from honey bee and related organisms, linked to complete scientific literature relevant to insect behavior. New text mining technology will integrate molecular description with information from physiology, behavior, neuroscience, and evolution. The BeeSpace environment will enable users to navigate a uniform space of diverse databases and literature sources for hypothesis development and testing. The software system will go beyond a searchable database, using statistical literature analyses to discover functional relationships between genes and behavior. This research will enable all scientists who study bee genes to live on the frontier of integrative biology, where biotechnology enables routine expression analysis and bioinformatics enables functional analysis unconstrained by pre-existing categories. The broader impact of the interactive environment for functional analysis will be tested in an international community of laboratories studying honey bees and related organisms. Outreach for BeeSpace will provide integrated research and education experiences at the graduate and undergraduate levels, plus training courses and minority outreach at high school and middle school levels.