Elucidating the coevolutionary dynamics in an obligate insect symbiosis

阐明专性昆虫共生中的共同进化动力学

• 批准号: 1551092
• 负责人: Nancy Moran
• 金额: $ 87.53万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1551092&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Elucidating; coevolutionary; dynamics; obligate; insect

Many insects, including pest species that harm crops and transmit disease, depend on symbiotic bacteria for survival. This community of symbiotic bacteria, known as the microbiome, lives inside their host's cells and tissues and is passed directly from mother to offspring. These bacteria often benefit their hosts, for example, by producing required nutrients missing from the diet. But symbionts also can undergo genetic changes detrimental to hosts. This project addresses whether and how detrimental evolution of symbionts affects their host insects. The focus here is on one such group, aphids, which attack most of our agricultural crops and require symbiotic bacteria in order to grow and reproduce. The research will be used as a basis for teaching basic biology and genetics to University of Texas undergraduate students, including participants in a large freshman research program. Also, the results will further understanding of a significant group of agricultural pests, potentially contributing to the development of new methods of crop protection.The experiments address how genetic variation of pea aphids affects their ability to regulate symbiotic bacteria and how genetic variation of the symbiotic bacteria affects their own multiplication within aphid hosts. The researchers measure how variation in symbiont regulation affects aphid growth and reproduction. Experimental genetic crosses of aphids that vary in levels of symbiotic bacteria will be combined with modern DNA sequencing methods to identify the parts of the aphid genome that affect symbiont numbers. In addition, symbiont strains will be transferred between aphid hosts using microinjection, to determine how different symbiont strains affect hosts.

许多昆虫，包括伤害作物和传播疾病的害虫物种，都取决于共生细菌的生存。这个共生细菌（称为微生物组）社区生活在宿主的细胞和组织中，直接从母亲传给后代。这些细菌通常通过产生饮食中缺少所需的营养来使其宿主受益。但是共生体也可以经历遗传变化，这是对宿主的有害的。该项目解决了共生体的有害进化以及如何影响其宿主昆虫。这里的重点是这样一个这样的群体，即蚜虫，它攻击了我们大多数农作物，需要共生细菌才能生长和繁殖。这项研究将被用作向德克萨斯大学本科生（包括大一新生研究计划的参与者）教授基本生物学和遗传学的基础。此外，结果将进一步理解一组重要的农业害虫，有可能促进新作物保护方法的发展。该实验探讨了豌豆蚜虫的遗传变异如何影响其调节共生细菌的能力以及如何调节伴生细菌的遗传变异如何影响其自身在蚜虫宿主中的综合作用。研究人员衡量共生调节的变异如何影响蚜虫的生长和繁殖。在共生细菌水平上有所不同的蚜虫的实验性遗传交叉将与现代DNA测序方法结合使用，以鉴定影响共生数字的蚜虫基因组的各个部分。此外，使用微注射的蚜虫宿主之间将传递共生菌株，以确定不同的共生菌株如何影响宿主。