Collaborative Research: Parental Effects, Telomere Dynamics, and the Cross-Generational Effects of Stressors

合作研究：父母效应、端粒动力学和压力源的跨代效应

基本信息

批准号：
1656212
负责人：
David Westneat
金额：
$ 25.37万
依托单位：
University of Kentucky Research Foundation
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Continuing Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2017-04-01 至 2022-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1656212&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research Parental Effects Telomere

项目摘要

Stress experienced by parents often has long-lasting effects on offspring. One intriguing but untested possibility is that stressors in parents alter their genes and these changes may then influence offspring. This project investigates this possibility using controlled experiments and field surveys in a bird system. The results will contribute to the understanding of mechanisms and consequences of cross-generation effects of environmental stressors, which is critical to understanding the long-term impacts of environmental change on organisms. This project incorporates students at several levels, from high school to post-graduate, who will be embedded in a mentoring network. This experience will give them thorough training in all aspects of being a scientist, including proposal writing, conducting research in the field and the lab, giving presentations, and preparing publications. Students will be actively recruited through Research to Improve Diversity and Education (RIDE), an organization that is dedicated to increasing the number of minorities in science, including local Tribal colleges in North Dakota. Moreover, the research team will also develop inquiry-based learning modules using data from the study for high school and college students that will be presented at Tribal colleges. This collaborative research project will assess the importance of an alternative mechanism of inheritance, direct effects of stressors on the DNA (telomeres) in parental gametes that are inherited by offspring. This mechanism would be a new route by which parental stress can impact offspring, and the study will document the lifetime effects on fitness of both this direct pathway and any indirect ones. These results will significantly expand the understanding of the mechanisms and functional consequences of cross-generational effects of environmental stressors, which is likely to be critical for predicting the long-term impacts of environmental change. In addition, this research will provide novel information about telomere length and loss rate in a wild system. Telomeres are increasingly used as a measure of biological aging in physiological ecology, yet there is still a lack of basic knowledge about the inheritance patterns and fitness consequences of variation in telomere length and loss rate in free-living organisms. The integrative approach employed spans molecular, hormonal and whole organism responses and in doing so will offer unique insight into the mechanistic underpinnings and functional consequences of stress exposure across generations. The results will add to our ability to assess how increasing stress levels will impact age-structured population dynamics and the potential for mitigating the impacts of early adversity for individuals and their descendants.

父母经历的压力通常会对后代产生长期影响。一种有趣但未经测试的可能性是，父母的压力改变了其基因，这些变化可能会影响后代。该项目使用受控的实验和鸟类系统中的现场调查研究了这种可能性。结果将有助于理解环境压力源的跨生成作用的机制和后果，这对于理解环境变化对生物的长期影响至关重要。该项目融合了从高中到研究生的多个级别的学生，他们将嵌入到指导网络中。这种经验将使他们在成为科学家的各个方面进行彻底的培训，包括提案写作，在现场和实验室进行研究，提供演讲和准备出版物。学生将通过研究积极招募，以改善多样性和教育（RIDE），该组织致力于增加科学少数群体的数量，包括北达科他州的当地部落学院。此外，研究团队还将使用研究中的高中和大学生的数据来开发基于询问的学习模块，这些数据将在部落学院介绍。该协作研究项目将评估遗传替代机制的重要性，压力源对DNA（端粒）的直接影响（端粒）在后代继承的父母配子中的重要性。这种机制将是一种新的途径，父母的压力会影响后代，该研究将记录对这种直接途径和任何间接途径的适应性的寿命影响。这些结果将大大扩展对环境压力源的跨代作用机制和功能后果的理解，这对于预测环境变化的长期影响至关重要。此外，这项研究将提供有关野生系统中端粒长度和损失率的新信息。端粒越来越多地用作生理生态学中生物衰老的量度，但仍然缺乏关于自由生活生物体端粒长度和损失率变化的遗传模式和适应性后果的基本知识。综合方法采用了跨越分子，激素和整个生物体反应的跨度，并这样做将为各代压力暴露的机械基础和功能后果提供独特的见解。结果将增加我们评估压力水平增加的能力，将如何影响年龄结构化的人群动态以及减轻早期逆境对个人及其后代的影响的潜力。