RUI: Characterization of Metabolic Genes Involved in Bacillus Sporulation

RUI：参与芽孢杆菌孢子形成的代谢基因的表征

• 批准号: 0817793
• 负责人: Jason Reddick
• 金额: $ 32.46万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina Greensboro
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-08-01 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0817793&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Characterization; Metabolic; Genes; Involved

During periods of starvation some bacterial species undergo a type of cell-differentiation which results in a highly resilient and dormant form called a spore. The study of sporulation is important since the spores of several bacterial species are harmful for a wide range of reasons. The main objective of this project is to discover how starving Bacillus subtilis cells still manage to have the energy to fuel sporulation. The central hypothesis is that when sporulating B. subtilis cells deplete their stores of glucose, the enzymes encoded by the mother cell metabolic gene (mmg) cluster contribute energy and material through the digestion of the cell's own fatty acids. The enzymes specified by the mmg cluster will be isolated, and their ability to participate in the necessary steps of fatty acid digestion will be examined. To determine the effects these genes have on sporulation, the energy state of sporulating mutants which lack these genes will be measured. Sporulation genes which are redundant or function in support of the mmg cluster will also be discovered by gene array experiments with these mutants. Successful completion of this research will be significant, because this knowledge will enable new investigations of other metabolic pathways used during sporulation.Broader Impact: Published results from this project will provide missing chemical data for previously unstudied genes, and will thus help improve the utility of the public genome sequence database for B. subtilis. Such data will also improve the predictive power of the overall set of genome databases, which will in turn impact the broad array of biotechnological fields which depend on genomics. Perhaps the most significant impact of this project on science and society will come from the large and diverse group of chemistry and biochemistry students that will receive training from this project at UNC-Greensboro. As they ultimately embark on their own science careers, the student participants will benefit science and society by contributing the broad range of communication and scientific skills they will learn from this project. The interdisciplinary project will advance discovery while promoting teaching and learning by inspiring students to pursue science careers in industry or graduate level research in NSF-sponsored fields. Former students from this lab are currently pursuing Ph.D's in organic chemistry and biological engineering, are working at biotechnology companies, or teaching high school science. New students will continue to perform all of the lab work, using diverse techniques including bacterial culture, DNA and protein methods, analytical chemistry, and synthetic organic chemistry. The students will also receive strong career mentoring related to professional life, graduate school, and scientific integrity. The Principal Investigator, a first-generation college graduate, will continue to recruit and mentor a diverse group of undergraduate and Masters students, which will include underrepresented groups and first-generation university students. For example, this large research group has been comprised so far of 62% female and 46% underrepresented minorities. The students will gain skills in written and oral communication through wide dissemination of their research in the scientific literature and presentations at scientific meetings. The project will also enhance the educational and research infrastructure at UNCG, not only from the student research opportunities, but also through the biochemistry lecture and laboratory courses. These courses will use this research to teach metabolic pathways along with the methods used to study them. Finally, this research will benefit society by adding needed experimental data to the theoretical gene-function assignments available in the publicly-funded B. subtilis genome database.

在饥饿期间，一些细菌物种经历了一种细胞分化，这种分化导致了一种称为孢子的高度弹性和休眠形式。孢子形成的研究是重要的，因为几种细菌的孢子是有害的，原因很多。该项目的主要目标是发现饥饿的枯草芽孢杆菌细胞如何仍然设法获得能量来促进孢子形成。中心假设是当孢子形成B.当枯草杆菌细胞耗尽其储存的葡萄糖时，由母细胞代谢基因（mmg）簇编码的酶通过消化细胞自身的脂肪酸来贡献能量和物质。由mmg簇指定的酶将被分离，并且它们参与脂肪酸消化的必要步骤的能力将被检查。为了确定这些基因对孢子形成的影响，将测量缺乏这些基因的孢子形成突变体的能量状态。用这些突变体进行的基因阵列实验也将发现多余的或支持mmg簇的孢子形成基因。这项研究的成功完成将是重要的，因为这方面的知识将使新的调查过程中使用的其他代谢途径的孢子。更广泛的影响：从这个项目公布的结果将提供丢失的化学数据，以前未研究的基因，因此将有助于提高公用基因组序列数据库的效用为B。枯草杆菌。这些数据还将提高整个基因组数据库的预测能力，这反过来将影响依赖基因组学的广泛生物技术领域。也许这个项目对科学和社会的最重要的影响将来自于将在北卡罗来纳大学格林斯伯勒接受这个项目培训的化学和生物化学学生的庞大而多样化的群体。当他们最终开始自己的科学生涯时，学生参与者将通过贡献他们将从该项目中学到的广泛的沟通和科学技能来造福科学和社会。该跨学科项目将通过激励学生在NSF赞助的领域从事工业或研究生水平研究的科学事业来促进发现，同时促进教学。这个实验室的前学生目前正在攻读有机化学和生物工程的博士学位，在生物技术公司工作，或教高中科学。新生将继续执行所有的实验室工作，使用不同的技术，包括细菌培养，DNA和蛋白质的方法，分析化学和合成有机化学。学生还将获得与职业生活，研究生院和科学诚信相关的强有力的职业指导。首席研究员是第一代大学毕业生，将继续招募和指导多样化的本科生和硕士生群体，其中包括代表性不足的群体和第一代大学生。例如，到目前为止，这个大型研究小组由62%的女性和46%的代表性不足的少数民族组成。学生将通过在科学文献和科学会议上的演讲中广泛传播他们的研究来获得书面和口头交流的技能。该项目还将加强UNCG的教育和研究基础设施，不仅从学生的研究机会，而且还通过生物化学讲座和实验室课程。这些课程将利用这项研究来教授代谢途径沿着用于研究它们的方法。最后，这项研究将通过为公共资助的B中可用的理论基因功能分配增加所需的实验数据来造福社会。枯草杆菌基因组数据库。