OPUS: MCS: The importance of mitochondrial and structural mutations in generating fitness variance in the ciliate Tetrahymena

作品：MCS：线粒体和结构突变在纤毛虫四膜虫中产生适应性差异的重要性

基本信息

批准号：
1911449
负责人：
Rebecca Zufall
金额：
$ 27.17万
依托单位：
University of Houston
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2019-06-01 至 2024-05-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911449&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
OPUS MCS importance mitochondrial structural

项目摘要

There are many types of genetic mutations and they can have different effects on an organism's fitness. For example, small mutations that change DNA base pairs within a gene may have different effects than mutations that change the number of copies of a gene. This research will shed light on the fundamental question: how do different types of genetic mutations contribute to the evolution of the enormous biodiversity found on earth? Surprisingly, the answer to this question remains unclear. In studies of a unicellular organism, this research will find the rate at which different types of mutations happen and look at the effects of these mutations on organisms' fitness. The results of this research will help to clarify the process of mutation and its role in generating diversity. This research will make possible the training in modern genomic methods of a mid-career scientist and several underrepresented minority and first-generation college students.Previous studies of mutation accumulation in a microbial eukaryote, the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, revealed a surprisingly low base-substitution mutation rate. This rate was so low that it could not account for the observed changes in fitness over the course of an experiment, indicating that there must be other types of mutations responsible for the observed changes in fitness. To determine the relative importance of different types of mutations in generating fitness variance, this research will measure the rates of base-substitution, structural, and mitochondrial mutations in T. thermophila, using these previously generated mutation accumulation lines. New genomic analyses of these lines will determine which types of mutations are most frequent and, by comparison to phenotypic data, will determine which types have the potential to generate the most variance in fitness-related traits. The results of these analyses will provide valuable insight into the types of mutations most responsible for evolutionary novelty.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.

遗传突变有多种类型，它们可能会对生物体的健康产生不同的影响。例如，在基因内改变DNA碱基对的小突变可能具有与改变基因副本数量的突变不同。这项研究将阐明以下基本问题：不同类型的遗传突变如何促进地球上巨大的生物多样性的演变？令人惊讶的是，这个问题的答案尚不清楚。在对单细胞生物的研究中，该研究将发现发生不同类型的突变发生的速率，并研究这些突变对生物体适应性的影响。这项研究的结果将有助于阐明突变的过程及其在产生多样性中的作用。这项研究将使在现代医生科学家和几位代表性不足的少数族裔和第一代大学生中进行现代基因组方法的培训。关于微生物真核生物突变积累的研究，纤毛四腺热嗜热的研究表明，令人惊讶的是基底构造突变率。该速率如此之低，以至于无法解释实验过程中观察到的健身变化，表明必须有其他类型的突变负责观察到的健身变化。为了确定不同类型的突变在产生适应性方差的相对重要性，本研究将使用这些先前生成的突变积累线来衡量T. thermophila中基础替代，结构和线粒体突变的速率。这些系的新基因组分析将确定哪种突变类型最常见，并且与表型数据相比，将确定哪种类型具有产生与适应性相关性状方差最大的潜力。这些分析的结果将为最负责进化新颖性的突变类型提供宝贵的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来支持的。