Molecular Phylogeny of Juniperus of the World

世界杜松的分子系统发育

• 批准号: 0629387
• 负责人: Andrea Schwarzbach
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: The University of Texas at Brownsville
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-03-22 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0629387&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Molecular; Phylogeny; Juniperus; World

A grant has been awarded to Drs. Andrea Schwarzbach at Kent State University and Robert P. Adams at Baylor University to produce the evolutionary relationships of the Juniper trees of the world using a complete collection of this group that was assembled by Dr. Adams. Junipers are the second largest group of conifers in the world. There are about 104 taxa of juniper (Juniperus) trees and shrubs that are found in North America, Europe, Asia, and east Africa. The purpose of this project is to determine the Life Tree (the species' relationships) among the junipers and relate these relationships to the solution of problems of cedar (juniper) allergies, range land improvement, historical biogeography and soil erosion as well as providing a basis for the continued search for biologically active compounds such as anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer compounds. The project will utilize DNA sequencing to gather the data for building the Life Tree as well as data on the volatile leaf oils, morphology and ecology that Dr. Adams has collected over the past 30 years. One of the genes sequenced is a pollen allergen gene that will allow us to study DNA sequence variation of an allergen gene on a worldwide basis. This grant will be used to train two graduate and several undergraduate students involving them in original research. An important aspect of this project is the collaboration with scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX. These scientists are working on a vaccine for immunization against cedar allergy (affecting over 30% of Americans). The pollen allergen gene that causes the cedar allergy is too virulent in American junipers to be used to make antibodies. However, the structure of this allergy gene appears to be different in more distantly related junipers from Mexico, Europe, Asia and Africa. One (or more) of these more distantly relatives of our local cedars will contain a suitable allergy gene that is able to cause the allergic reaction but not too virulent and can be utilized to produce a future vaccine.

已向博士授予补助金。肯特州立大学的安德里亚·施瓦茨巴赫 (Andrea Schwarzbach) 和贝勒大学的罗伯特·P·亚当斯 (Robert P. Adams) 利用亚当斯博士收集的该类群的完整集合，得出了世界上杜松树的进化关系。杜松是世界第二大针叶树类群。大约有 104 个杜松 (Juniperus) 树和灌木类群，分布在北美、欧洲、亚洲和东非。该项目的目的是确定杜松之间的生命树（物种关系），并将这些关系与雪松（杜松）过敏、牧场土地改良、历史生物地理学和土壤侵蚀问题的解决方案联系起来，并为继续寻找生物活性化合物（如抗真菌、抗菌和抗癌化合物）提供基础。该项目将利用 DNA 测序来收集构建生命树的数据，以及 Adams 博士在过去 30 年中收集的有关挥发性叶油、形态和生态的数据。其中一个被测序的基因是花粉过敏原基因，这将使我们能够在全球范围内研究过敏原基因的 DNA 序列变异。 这笔赠款将用于培训两名研究生和几名本科生，让他们参与原创性研究。该项目的一个重要方面是与德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿德克萨斯大学医学分部的科学家合作。这些科学家正在研究一种针对雪松过敏（影响超过 30% 的美国人）的免疫疫苗。引起雪松过敏的花粉过敏原基因在美国杜松中毒性太大，无法用于制造抗体。然而，在来自墨西哥、欧洲、亚洲和非洲的关系较远的杜松中，这种过敏基因的结构似乎有所不同。我们当地雪松的这些远亲中的一个（或多个）将含有合适的过敏基因，该基因能够引起过敏反应，但毒性不太大，可用于生产未来的疫苗。