CAREER: The Origins of Genome Complexity in an Insect-bacteria Endosymbiosis

所有的植物和动物细胞都含有线粒体，这是一种产生细胞化学能的特殊结构。然而，线粒体并不是任何细胞成分；它们是一种古老细菌感染的结果。它们本质上是永久生活在我们细胞中的细菌；他们已经成为我们的一部分。直到几年前，人们还认为线粒体（及其在植物中的伙伴结构——叶绿体）在生物学中是独一无二的。最近的研究表明，生物学中存在许多类似线粒体的关系。尤其是昆虫，它们不断地与长期居住在它们细胞中的细菌发展关系。这些细菌与线粒体有许多相似之处，特别是在基因组结构方面。这个项目的目标是利用最近发现的生活在蝉体内的细菌作为一个窗口，了解线粒体和叶绿体的起源，以及它们如何与发现它们的细胞结合。在这个项目中描述的工作将使用尖端的基因组实验来实现这些目标。这项工作是计算密集型的，因此这项研究的教育部分将侧重于向蒙大拿州各级学生教授计算机编程及其应用。这项工作将有一个重要的结果，通过给蒙大拿州学生提供他们需要处理多样化、复杂和大型数据集的计算工具，从而提高他们的竞争力。线粒体在生命史上只出现过一次，那是在很久以前，它们进化的细节仍然不清楚。对多种植物、动物和单细胞生物线粒体的研究揭示了线粒体基因组结构和大小的惊人多样性。昆虫获得细菌内共生体的时间比线粒体的起源要晚得多，因此与线粒体的起源和建立相关的许多特征在昆虫内共生体中也能看到，但进化程度较低。最近的研究表明，像线粒体一样，一些昆虫内共生体经历了广泛的基因组片段化和扩增。这项研究将使用基因组测序、转录组测序、分子进化和野外生物学来深入了解为什么一些内共生基因组保持稳定，而另一些则多样化。这个项目包括一些活动，将教授蒙大拿大学的本科生和研究生使用基因组数据进行计算机编程的基础知识。该提案将把缺乏任何计算背景的生物学学生与来自图形艺术的学生聚集在一起，对他们来说，数据可视化技术是常规的。这些学生将彼此合作，创造可视化大量基因组数据的新方法。

All plant and animal cells contain mitochondria, the specialized structures that generate a cell's chemical energy. However, mitochondria are not just any cellular component; they are the result of an ancient bacterial infection. They essentially are bacteria that permanently live in our cells; they have become part of us. Until just a few years ago, it was thought that the mitochondrion (and its partner structure in plants, the chloroplast) was unique in biology. Recent work has shown that many mitochondrion-like relationships exist in biology. Insects in particular have repeatedly developed relationships with bacteria that have taken up permanent residence in their cells. These bacteria show many similarities to mitochondria, particularly in reference to genome structure. The goal of this project is to use recent discoveries about the bacteria that live inside cicadas as a window into the origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts and how they integrate with the cells in which they are found. . The work described in this project will use cutting-edge genomic experiments to accomplish these goals. This work is computationally intensive, and as such the educational component of this research will focus on teaching computer programming and its applications to Montana students at all levels. This work will have the important outcome of increasing the competitiveness of Montana students by giving them the computational tools they need to handle diverse, complex, and large sets of data. Mitochondria originated only once in the history of life, a very long time ago, and the details of their evolution remain obscure. Research into the mitochondria of diverse plants, animals, and single-celled organisms has revealed striking diversity in mitochondrial genome structure and size. Insects acquired bacterial endosymbionts much more recently than the origin of mitochondria, and so many of the features associated with the origin and establishment of the mitochondria are seen in insect endosymbionts but are less evolved. Recent work has shown that, like mitochondria, some insect endosymbionts have undergone extensive genome fragmentation and expansion. This research will use genome sequencing, transcriptome sequencing, molecular evolution, and field biology to provide insight into why some endosymbiotic genomes stay stable, while others diversify. This project includes activities that will teach University of Montana undergraduates and graduate students the fundamentals of computer programming using genomic data. The proposal will bring together students of biology that lack any computational background with students from the graphical arts for whom data visualization techniques are routine into a single course. These students will work collaboratively with each other to create new ways of visualizing massive genome data.