Variation in Host Responses to Acquisition of Microbial Partners and Pathogens

宿主对获得微生物伙伴和病原体的反应的变化

• 批准号: 1025853
• 负责人: Nicole Gerardo
• 金额: $ 50.1万
• 依托单位: Emory University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-08-15 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1025853&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Variation; Host; Responses; Acquisition; Microbial

Most plants and animals are associated with microbial partners that shape their hosts' ability to use environmental resources and to persist under different conditions of stress and disease. These associated benefits select for hosts to maintain these symbiotic partners over generations. While accepting and maintaining beneficial microbes, hosts must also try to attenuate the effects of pathogenic ones. To better understand how animals accomplish this goal, this research characterizes the responses of the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, to acquisition of beneficial and harmful bacteria. These insects are ideal candidates for this research because they have a well-studied association with symbiotic bacteria but are also hampered by bacterial pathogens. In this project, variation in susceptibility to pathogens and acceptance of symbionts will be assessed by experimentally measuring these traits in different aphid lineages. Immunological assays will be used to investigate cell-based immune responses, and sequencing technology will be employed to investigate expression of immune response genes. Results will significantly advance our understanding of host susceptibility, immunity and stress in relation to beneficial and harmful microbial associates. Generation of large amounts of genetic data, which will be deposited online at AphidBase and GenBank, will facilitate ongoing annotation of the pea aphid genome, thus providing resources for future studies of a significant agricultural pest. This project will fund training of one graduate student, one postdoctoral researcher, a middle school teacher, and several minority undergraduates. Additionally, results of the research project will be used as the basis for a novel art and science collaboration, in which scientists will work with student artists and minority-serving after school programs to explore how artistic interpretations of scientific results can be used to make research publicly accessible.

大多数植物和动物都与微生物伴侣有关，这些微生物伴侣塑造了宿主利用环境资源的能力，并在不同的压力和疾病条件下持续存在。这些相关的好处选择宿主在几代人中维持这些共生伙伴。在接受和维持有益微生物的同时，宿主也必须设法减弱致病微生物的影响。为了更好地了解动物如何实现这一目标，本研究描述了豌豆蚜Acyrthosiphon pisum对有益和有害细菌的反应。这些昆虫是这项研究的理想候选者，因为它们与共生细菌有着充分的研究，但也受到细菌病原体的阻碍。在这个项目中，对病原体的敏感性和接受共生体的变化将通过实验测量这些性状在不同的蚜虫谱系进行评估。免疫学测定将用于研究基于细胞的免疫应答，测序技术将用于研究免疫应答基因的表达。研究结果将大大促进我们对有益和有害微生物相关的宿主易感性、免疫力和应激的理解。产生大量的遗传数据，这些数据将在线存放在AphidBase和GenBank中，将有助于正在进行的豌豆蚜虫基因组注释，从而为未来对重要农业害虫的研究提供资源。该项目将资助培训一名研究生、一名博士后研究员、一名中学教师和几名少数民族大学生。此外，该研究项目的结果将被用作一种新的艺术和科学合作的基础，在这种合作中，科学家将与学生艺术家和少数民族课后服务项目合作，探索如何利用对科学成果的艺术诠释来使研究公开。