EAGER: Rapid isolation of live microbial species from environmental communities

微生物无处不在，它们在生态系统功能和人类健康中发挥着重要作用。然而，研究微生物具有挑战性，因为它们非常小并且生活在复杂的群落中。大多数微生物物种无法在实验室中培养。因此，为了了解微生物的多样性、进化和生态学，科学家通常从环境中提取大量 DNA。这可以揭示存在哪些类型的微生物，但它不能提供有关每个物种的外观以及哪些物种正在执行哪些过程的信息。在这个项目中，研究人员将开发一种设备，将复杂的微生物群落分成各自的物种。研究人员将与微生物系统学、多样性和生态学界的其他科学家广泛分享这种分离技术，以帮助加速这些领域的研究。将开发一个交互式外展模块并将其提供给 K-12 学生，以帮助激发对科学、技术和工程研究的欣赏。该项目将开发一种使用介电泳根据形态类型分离微生物群落的方法。介电泳是不带电粒子在电场中的运动。具有相似尺寸、形状和表面特性的颗粒以相似的方式移动，并且一旦施加电场，预计就会积聚在门控微观通道的同一隔室中。这种方法将使科学家能够将未充分研究的微生物群落的形态和分子生物多样性联系起来，从而推动微生物系统学和生物多样性科学领域的发展。 该分离装置将用于回答有关生活在白蚁后肠中的共生、消化木材的原生动物的进化的两个主要问题。首先，白蚁后肠原生动物的祖先是如何获得消化木材的能力的？在这个项目中，来自关键原生动物物种的数万个细胞将从其群落的其他细胞中分离出来，进行转录组测序。木材消化酶的基因将与其他生物体的相关基因一起被鉴定和系统发育分析。其次，原生动物共生体是否从一种白蚁物种转移到了动物白蚁属的另一种白蚁物种？如果是这样，这是否可以解释原生动物相对于宿主的更大多样性？在该项目中，四种白蚁属物种的后肠群落将被分成其组成物种，以确定存在多少原生动物物种以及它们彼此之间的亲缘关系如何。该信息将与白蚁的系统发育和生物地理学进行比较，以确定是否以及何时可能发生这种转移。

Microbes are everywhere, and they play major roles in ecosystem function and human health. However, studying microbes is challenging because they are so small and because they live in complex communities. Most microbial species cannot be cultivated in the lab. Therefore, to understand the diversity, evolution, and ecology of microbes, scientists typically extract bulk DNA from the environment. This can reveal which types of microbes are present, but it does not provide information about what each species looks like and which species are carrying out which processes. In this project, researchers will develop a device to separate complex microbial communities into their individual species. The researchers will share this separation technology broadly with other scientists in the microbial systematics, diversity, and ecology communities to help accelerate research in these areas. An interactive outreach module will be developed and brought to K-12 students to help spark appreciation for science, technology, and engineering research.This project will develop a method using dielectrophoresis to separate microbial communities based on morphotypes. Dielectrophoresis is the movement of uncharged particles in an electric field. Particles of similar size, shape, and surface characteristics move in similar ways and are expected to accumulate in the same compartment of a gated microscopic channel once an electrical field is applied. This approach will advance the fields of microbial systematics and biodiversity science by enabling scientists to link morphological and molecular biodiversity in understudied microbial communities. The separation device will be used to answer two main questions about the evolution of symbiotic, wood-digesting protozoa that live in termite hindguts. First, how did the ancestor of termite hindgut protozoa acquire the ability to digest wood? For this project, tens of thousands of cells from key protozoan species will be separated from the rest of their communities for transcriptome sequencing. Genes for wood digesting enzymes will be identified and phylogenetically analyzed along with related genes from other organisms. Second, have protozoan symbionts transferred from one termite species to another in the genus Zootermopsis? And if so, can this explain the greater diversity of protozoa relative to their hosts? For this project, the hindgut communities of four Zootermopsis species will be separated into their constituent species in order to determine how many protozoan species are present and how closely they are related to one another. This information will be compared to the phylogeny and biogeography of Zootermopsis termites to determine whether and when such transfers may have occurred.