LiT: Interactive effects of multiple environmental stressors on mitochondrial metabolism and bioenergetics in a model marine ectotherm, Crassostrea virginica

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案资助的（公法111-5）.虽然河口和沿海地区是海洋中最具生产力的地区，但由于盐度、温度、pH值、含氧量的自然变化以及倾倒污染物和营养物造成的人为压力，它们往往受到高度的环境压力，这会导致海洋生物中毒和/或导致氧气耗尽的“死亡区”。海洋生物的生存取决于其应激耐受机制的灵活性，这些机制能够适应大多数自然变化，但人为变化发生得太快，无法发生进化适应。能量代谢在这些适应中起着关键作用。目前，在环境现实的背景下，多个压力对海洋生物的能量代谢的相互作用的影响还没有得到很好的理解，因为大多数研究集中在单一的压力的影响。这项研究将有助于关闭这一显着的知识差距，探索基本的生理和分子机制的相互作用的影响，三种压力通常发现在河口和沿海地区（间歇性缺氧，或缺氧;微量金属，镉;和温度应力）的模式海洋软体动物，东部牡蛎Crassostrea virginica的能量代谢。牡蛎是主要的生态系统建设者，在美国东部沿海各州的经济中发挥着重要作用，可以在极端环境中生存，使它们成为这项研究的优秀模式生物。该研究涉及有氧（线粒体）和无氧代谢的综合分析，并将通过提供环境现实压力暴露期间代谢变化的综合图片来显着推进代谢生理学领域，这些压力暴露可以在定量和定性上不同于单一压力源的影响。此外，由于能量代谢对所有生物的生存和胁迫耐受性至关重要，并且线粒体功能在进化中高度保守，因此该项目的结果可以外推到牡蛎之外，从而对海洋无脊椎动物线粒体胁迫反应的基本机制产生重要的新见解。该项目将通过涉及本科生，研究生，K-12学生和博士后，包括妇女和代表性不足的少数民族，进入研究产生重要的教育影响;加强跨学科博士学位的环境重点。在夏洛特的北卡罗来纳州大学的生物学项目;并促进积极的合作项目和学生之间的交流夏洛特和约翰逊C。史密斯大学，一所当地少数民族大学。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).While among the most productive areas of the ocean, estuaries and coastal zones often suffer a high degree of environmental stress from naturally-occurring changes in salinity, temperature, pH, oxygen content as well as manmade stresses caused by the dumping of pollutants and nutrients, which can cause toxicity in marine organisms and/or lead to oxygen-depleted 'dead zones'. The survival of marine organisms depends on the flexibility of their stress tolerance mechanisms, which adapt to handle most natural changes, but manmade changes happen too quickly for evolutionary adaptation to occur. Energy metabolism plays a key role in these adaptations. Currently, the interactive effects of multiple stressors on energy metabolism of marine organisms in an environmentally-realistic context are not well understood because most studies focus on the effects of a single stressor. This study will help close this significant gap in knowledge by exploring the basic physiological and molecular mechanisms of the interactive effects of three stressors commonly found in estuaries and coastal zones (intermittent anoxia, or lack of oxygen; a trace metal, cadmium; and temperature stress) on the energy metabolism of a model marine mollusk, the eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica. Oysters, which are major ecosystem builders and play an important role in the economies of the eastern US coastal states, can survive environmental extremes, making them excellent model organisms for this study. The study involves a comprehensive analysis of aerobic (mitochondrial) and anaerobic metabolism and will significantly advance the field of metabolic physiology by providing an integrative picture of metabolic change during environmentally-realistic stress exposures that can be quantitatively and qualitatively different than the effects of single stressors. Moreover, because energy metabolism is central to the survival and stress tolerance of all organisms and mitochondrial functions are highly conserved in evolution, the project results can be extrapolated beyond oysters to yield important new insights into the fundamental mechanisms of mitochondrial stress responses of marine invertebrates in general. This project will have important educational impacts by involving undergraduate, graduate, K-12 students and a post-doc, including women and underrepresented minorities, into research; strengthening an environmental focus in the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and fostering active collaborative programs and student exchanges between UNC Charlotte and Johnson C. Smith University, a local minority undergraduate-level university.