Environmental Lipidomics of Suspended and Sinking Particles in the Upper Ocean

海洋中的浮游生物在调节地球方面发挥着重要作用？由于它们在循环二氧化碳中的作用， 例如，一些浮游生物利用光合作用将二氧化碳转化为组成其细胞的有机分子。 这些有机分子中约有四分之一是脂质，它们作为膜的结构成分、油体中的能量储备和信号分子发挥着重要作用。 在某些细胞中，有超过一千种不同类型的脂质分子，每一种在细胞的代谢中起着独特而重要的作用。 浮游脂质对人类也很重要。 它们由地球科学家测量，以解决各种各样的问题，从了解地球上生命何时进化，到估计过去地质时期海洋的温度，再到评估浮游生物的健康状况及其进行光合作用的能力。 浮游脂质也是石油的主要成分，石油是运输和工业的关键能源。最后，海洋浮游生物是人类饮食中所需的许多“必需”脂质的唯一来源，但无法有效地合成。 值得注意的例子是二十碳五烯酸（EPA）和二十二碳六烯酸（DHA），它们在人类的心血管健康，激素产生和炎症管理中起着关键作用。平均而言，全球人口长期缺乏EPA和DHA。 海鲜是人类饮食中这些必需脂肪酸的唯一来源，但我们不知道海洋生物生产的这些脂质是否能够满足未来全球的需求。尽管海洋脂质很重要，但地球科学家对海洋中脂质的分布只有基本的了解，无法预测脂质将如何应对未来的全球变暖。 实验室浮游植物培养实验的结果表明，未来海洋中产生的脂质的类型和数量可能会发生重大变化。 作为该项目的一部分正在进行的研究旨在通过对海洋中的脂质进行首次全球规模的评估来解决这一问题。 总体战略将是将脂质组学（一种同时分析浮游生物细胞中所有脂质的最先进方法）应用于来自广泛海洋环境的数千个样本库。 这些环境几乎涵盖了全球范围内被认为影响浮游生物脂质代谢的因素。 该项目将为研究海洋脂质的种类、来源和命运提供新的思路，并使科学家能够预测和应对未来海洋脂质输出的变化。 该项目还将告知我们对石油形成的理解，并为地球科学家提供更好的工具来了解地球的历史。 这位科学家将继续努力培养下一代科学家（博士后），并通过他的科学外展努力教育社区和K-12学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Plankton in the ocean play an important role in regulating Earth?s climate due to their role in cycling carbon dioxide. For example, some plankton use photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into the organic molecules that compose their cells. About a quarter of these organic molecules are lipids, which serve important roles as structural components of membranes, as energy reserves in oil bodies, and as signaling molecules. In some planktonic cells there are over one thousand different types of lipid molecules, each playing a distinct and essential role in the metabolism of the cell. Planktonic lipids are also important for humans. They are measured by geoscientists in order to address a wide variety of problems, from understanding when life evolved on Earth, to estimating the temperature of the ocean in geological past, to assessing the health of plankton and their ability to conduct photosynthesis. Planktonic lipids are also the main components of petroleum, a critical energy source for transportation and industry. Finally, ocean plankton are the sole sources of many "essential" lipids that humans require in their diet but cannot efficiently synthesize themselves. Notable examples are eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which in humans play key roles in cardiovascular health, hormone production, and inflammation management. On average, the global population of humans is chronically deficient in EPA and DHA. Seafood is essentially the only source of these essential fatty acids to the human diet, and yet we do not know if production of these lipids by marine organisms will be able to keep up with future global demand.Despite the importance of planktonic lipids, geoscientists have only a basic understanding of lipid distributions in the ocean and cannot predict how lipids will change in response to future global warming. Results from lab experiments with cultures of phytoplankton suggest the potential for significant future alterations in the types and amounts of lipids produced in the oceans. The research being conducted as part of this project seeks to address this problem by producing the first global-scale assessment of lipids in the ocean. The overarching strategy will be to apply lipidomics, a state-of-the-art method for simultaneously analyzing all of the lipids in a plankton cell, to a library of thousands of samples from a broad range of ocean environments. These environments nearly span the global range in factors thought to affect plankton lipid metabolism. This project will shed new light on the identity, sources, and fates of the vast diversity of planktonic lipids, and enable scientists to predict and respond to changes in the future output of lipids from the ocean. The project will also inform our understanding of petroleum formation, and provide geoscientist with better tools for understanding Earth's history. The scientist would continue his efforts to train the next generation of scientists (postdoc), as well as his quest to educate the community and K-12 students via his science outreach endeavors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.