IRFP: Robustness, Evolvability, and Reproductive Isolation in the Signal-Integration Space of Gene Regulatory Networks

IRFP：基因调控网络信号整合空间的鲁棒性、进化性和生殖隔离

• 批准号: 1064310
• 负责人: Joshua Payne
• 金额: $ 13.87万
• 依托单位: Payne Joshua L
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-02-01 至 2014-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1064310&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: IRFP; Robustness; Evolvability; Reproductive; Isolation

The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program?s awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and environmental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Joshua L. Payne to work with Dr. Andreas Wagner at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.Living organisms exhibit two seemingly paradoxical properties: They are robust to genetic change, yet highly evolvable. These properties appear contradictory because the former requires that genetic alterations leave the phenotype intact, while the latter requires these alterations to be used for the exploration of new phenotypes. Despite this apparent contradiction, several empirical analyses of living systems, particularly at the molecular scale, have revealed that robustness often facilitates evolvability. This project uses computational models of genetic regulation to characterize the relationship between robustness and evolvability in gene regulatory networks when genetic alterations affect the signal-integration logic encoded in cis-regulatory regions. As evolvability is intimately tied to the formation of new phenotypes, this project also focuses on the relationship between evolvability and the evolution of reproductive isolation, a topic of central importance in evolutionary biology.This award will shed insight into the relationship between robustness and evolvability in biological systems and will provide valuable interdisciplinary research experience to several undergraduate and graduate students involved in the project, which will benefit the international scientific community at large. In addition, Dr. Payne will gain experience in a highly regarded foreign laboratory, which will lead to sustained collaborations that cross national boundaries and a broadened perspective of the scientific endeavor.

国际研究奖学金项目使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9至24个月的研究。这个项目吗?美国奖学金为联合研究提供机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和环境条件。该奖项将支持Joshua L. Payne博士与瑞士苏黎世大学的Andreas Wagner博士进行为期24个月的研究。生物体表现出两种看似矛盾的特性：它们对基因变化具有很强的抵抗力，但又具有高度的可进化性。这些特性看起来是矛盾的，因为前者要求基因改变保持表型完整，而后者要求这些改变用于探索新的表型。尽管存在这种明显的矛盾，但对生命系统的一些实证分析，特别是在分子尺度上，已经揭示了稳健性通常促进了可进化性。本项目使用遗传调控的计算模型来描述当遗传改变影响顺式调控区域编码的信号集成逻辑时，基因调控网络中鲁棒性和进化性之间的关系。由于可进化性与新表型的形成密切相关，本项目还关注可进化性与生殖隔离进化之间的关系，这是进化生物学中一个重要的主题。该奖项将深入了解生物系统的稳健性和可进化性之间的关系，并将为参与该项目的几名本科生和研究生提供宝贵的跨学科研究经验，这将有利于整个国际科学界。此外，Dr. Payne将在一个备受推崇的国外实验室获得经验，这将导致跨越国界的持续合作，并拓宽科学努力的视角。