International Research Fellowship Program: Evolutionary Reproductive Genomics in Humans and Great Apes

国际研究奖学金计划：人类和类人猿的进化生殖基因组学

• 批准号: 0754461
• 负责人: Jeffrey Good
• 金额: $ 16.9万
• 依托单位: Good Jeffrey M
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-05-15 至 2010-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0754461&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: International; Research; Fellowship; Program; Evolutionary

0754461GoodThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Jeffrey Good to work with Dr. Svante Paabo at Max Planck Institute in Germany.Genes involved in reproduction often evolve very rapidly in animals, yet the evolutionary forces driving this divergence remain poorly understood. Theory predicts that the evolution of reproduction-related characters within a species should be strongly influenced by the underlying mating system, with the most rapid evolutionary divergence occurring in species where females frequently mate with multiple males. This hypothesis has not been broadly tested at the molecular level. Strikingly different mating systems occur among closely related species of great apes (including humans), providing a powerful system to test the influence of mating behavior on the evolution of reproductive genes. This research project combines high-throughput sequencing of DNA, evolutionary genetic analyses, and detailed knowledge of primate biology to address fundamental questions on the molecular evolution of male reproduction. There are two primary objectives of this study. First, patterns of genetic variation in populations of bonobos (Pan paniscus) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are being characterized to infer the demographic history of these species, thereby enabling the use of statistical models designed to detect positive natural selection. Second, patterns of molecular evolution are being described for a large set of male reproductive genes in population samples of bonobos, gorillas, and humans. These three closely related species show very different mating systems with the highest levels of female re-mating found in bonobos. Thus, genetic data are being used to test if male reproductive genes in bonobos are subject to a greater intensity and frequency of positive selection relative to gorillas and humans. Moreover, these data are being used to infer which general aspects of mammalian male reproduction are subject to the most intense evolutionary pressures across these species. This study is refining our understanding of basic evolutionary processes, male reproductive biology, and the genetic changes that underlie adaptive divergence between humans and our closest relatives.

好国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持杰弗里·古德博士与德国马克斯·普朗克研究所的斯万特·帕博博士合作的为期24个月的研究奖学金。参与繁殖的基因通常在动物身上进化得非常快，但推动这种分化的进化力量仍然鲜为人知。理论预测，一个物种内与生殖相关的特征的进化应该受到潜在的交配系统的强烈影响，最快的进化分歧发生在雌性经常与多个雄性交配的物种中。这一假设还没有在分子水平上得到广泛的检验。在关系密切的类人猿物种(包括人类)之间，存在着截然不同的交配系统，这为测试交配行为对生殖基因进化的影响提供了一个强大的系统。这项研究项目结合了DNA的高通量测序、进化遗传分析和灵长类生物学的详细知识，以解决关于雄性生殖的分子进化的基本问题。这项研究有两个主要目的。首先，正在对矮黑猩猩(Paniscus)和大猩猩(Gorilla Gorilla)种群的遗传变异模式进行表征，以推断这些物种的人口历史，从而能够使用旨在检测正向自然选择的统计模型。第二，在黑猩猩、大猩猩和人类的种群样本中，描述了一大组雄性生殖基因的分子进化模式。这三个密切相关的物种表现出非常不同的交配系统，雌性重新交配的水平最高的是矮黑猩猩。因此，基因数据被用来测试与大猩猩和人类相比，黑猩猩的雄性生殖基因是否受到更大强度和更频繁的正向选择。此外，这些数据被用来推断哺乳动物雄性生殖的哪些一般方面在这些物种中受到最强烈的进化压力。这项研究正在完善我们对基本进化过程、男性生殖生物学以及导致人类和我们最近亲属之间适应差异的基因变化的理解。