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，研究微生物是具有挑战性的，因为它们是如此之小，因为它们生活在复杂的社区。大多数微生物物种不能在实验室中培养。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进行哪些过程的信息。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离成各自的物种。研究人员将与微生物系统学、多样性和生态学领域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。将开发一个互动式外展模块，并将其带给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电泳的方法，以分离基于形态的微生物群落。介电电泳是不带电粒子在电场中的运动。具有相似尺寸、形状和表面特征的颗粒以相似的方式移动，并且一旦施加电场，预期将在门控微观通道的同一隔室中积聚。这种方法将通过使科学家能够将未充分研究的微生物群落中的形态和分子生物多样性联系起来，推进微生物系统学和生物多样性科学领域。 分离装置将被用来回答两个主要的问题，关于生活在白蚁后肠中的共生、消化木材的原生动物的进化。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部分中分离出来，进行转录组测序。木材消化酶的基因将与其他生物的相关基因一起被鉴定和遗传学分析沿着。第二，在动物白蚁属中，原生动物共生体是否从一种白蚁转移到另一种白蚁？如果是这样的话，这能解释原生动物相对于它们的宿主更大的多样性吗？在这个项目中，四个动物白蚁属物种的后肠群落将被分成其组成物种，以确定有多少原生动物物种存在，以及它们之间的关系有多密切。这些信息将与动物白蚁属白蚁的发生史和地理分布进行比较，以确定是否以及何时可能发生此类转移。

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.