CAREER: Quantifying pleiotropy by parallel experimental evolution

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。只有一小部分突变在给定的环境中是有益的，并且不确定在一个环境中有益的突变如何影响其他环境中的生物体表现。突变的影响可能出现在单一环境中，也可能在许多环境中产生广泛的后果。突变的益处的广度通常是未知的，尽管对于理解适应变化的环境是至关重要的。该项目将通过研究实验室微观世界中的细菌进化，提高对适应一种环境和利用其他环境的能力之间关系的理解。该项目将从细菌种群中收集许多有益的突变体，并精确量化它们在单一选择性环境中的适应价值。这些突变体的间接影响的范围，然后将通过评估其在一系列不同的环境条件下对生物体性能的影响来测量。现代分子遗传学和微生物学技术将被用来描述在细菌进化种群中连接遗传学、生理学和生态学的生物网络。遗传学、生物功能和生态学之间的联系尚未得到充分探索，大多数高中和大学课程都将它们作为独立的学科进行教学。然而，以研究为基础的实验室练习，让学生在行动中研究进化，探索单一突变的广泛影响，可以促进跨学科的学习，其中这些领域是一体化的。该项目将使数百项此类研究能够同时进行，分布在许多实验室和教室，每个实验室和教室将其研究结果存入中央数据库。将选择关键类型的突变体，并使用当代基因组技术鉴定其遗传基础，这有望激发实验室和课堂上的进一步研究。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Only a rare fraction of mutations is beneficial in a given environment, and it is uncertain how mutations that are beneficial in one environment will influence organismal performance in other environments. The effect of a mutation could appear in a single environment or could have widespread consequences in many environments. The breadth of benefits of mutations is generally unknown, though is fundamental to understanding adaptation to changing environments. This project will improve understanding of the relationship between adaptation to one environment and ability to use other environments through study of bacteria evolving in laboratory microcosms. This project will collect many beneficial mutants from bacterial populations and precisely quantify their adaptive value in a single selective environment. The scope of indirect effects of these mutants then will be measured by evaluating their effects on organismal performance in a range of different environmental conditions. Contemporary techniques of molecular genetics and microbiology will be used to characterize the biological networks that link genetics, physiology, and ecology in the evolving populations of bacteria.Linkages between genetics, organismal function, and ecology are underexplored, and most high school and college curricula teach them as discrete subjects. However, research-based laboratory exercises that allow students to study evolution in action and explore the widespread effects of single mutations can promote interdisciplinary learning in which these fields are integrated. This project will enable hundreds of such studies to be conducted simultaneously, distributed among many laboratories and classrooms, each depositing their findings to a central database. Mutants of key types will be selected and their genetic bases identified using contemporary genomic technology, which promises to inspire further research in the laboratory and classroom alike.