EAGER: From Zero to Genome in Two Years: Transformative Techniques for Evo-lutionary Genetics

EAGER：两年内从零到基因组：进化遗传学的变革性技术

• 批准号: 1038587
• 负责人: William Cresko
• 金额: $ 15.6万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-05-15 至 2013-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1038587&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Zero; Genome; Two; Years

A significant challenge for biologists is understanding the genetic basis of variation among organisms. Meeting this challenge will require numerous organisms to become "genomically enabled", that is having a large number of genetic markers spread evenly throughout the genome that can be assembled into a genetic map. This will allow researchers to move very quickly from roughly locating a gene on a chromosome to identifying DNA sequences. In the past, developing these tools was time consuming and very expensive. The goal of this project is to develop a clear set of protocols and computational software to rapidly produce genomic analysis tools for just about any organism. After first testing the protocols on the well-developed model nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, the techniques will be further refined by applying them to a non-model vertebrate organism, the pipefish Syngnathus scovelli. The research on these two organisms will serve as test cases from which an easily followed set of methods will be created and distributed widely, including the wet lab procedures for data generation and the software for the analysis of these data. This research will have broad impacts by increasing the number of researchers who can genomically enable the organisms they study. This will lead to a more general set of answers to classic unanswered questions such as what genes and alleles are contributing to evolutionary change. In addition these tools will help biologists tackle practical problems such as what is the genomic basis of how organisms respond to climate change, a fundamental problem of our time.

生物学家面临的一个重大挑战是了解生物体之间变异的遗传基础。迎接这一挑战将需要许多生物体成为“基因组使能”，即有大量的遗传标记均匀分布在整个基因组，可以组装成一个遗传图谱。这将使研究人员能够非常快速地从粗略定位染色体上的基因到识别DNA序列。在过去，开发这些工具既耗时又昂贵。该项目的目标是开发一套清晰的协议和计算软件，以快速生产几乎任何生物体的基因组分析工具。在首先对发育良好的模式线虫秀丽隐杆线虫进行测试后，将通过将其应用于非模式脊椎动物生物体海龙（海龙）来进一步完善这些技术。对这两种生物的研究将作为测试案例，从中将创建一套易于遵循的方法并广泛分发，包括用于数据生成的湿实验室程序和用于分析这些数据的软件。这项研究将通过增加能够在基因组上使他们研究的生物体成为可能的研究人员的数量而产生广泛的影响。这将导致一个更普遍的答案，以经典的未回答的问题，如什么基因和等位基因是有助于进化的变化。此外，这些工具将帮助生物学家解决实际问题，例如生物体如何应对气候变化的基因组基础是什么，这是我们这个时代的一个基本问题。