CAREER: Unlocking Microbial Condensed Tannin Resistance Mechanisms: Scaling from Enzymes to Biomes

被称为缩合单宁（CT）的化合物影响微生物群落合成生物燃料，解毒工业废物流，在土壤中进行关键的碳循环以及为人类和动物提供营养的能力。尽管它们具有全球重要性，但微生物对CT的反应目前仍是一个谜。该研究项目针对这一巨大的知识差距，以确定在一系列生态系统中降解CT的微生物及其酶。除了科学进步，该项目还将支持俄亥俄州州立大学微生物学入门课程的重要课程开发。通过开发基于课程的本科生研究体验（CURE），该项目将允许数百名本科生科学家进行真实的研究;经验表明，科学教育和提高学生在科学学科的保留。该项目将创建一个修改后的本科实验室类，CURE学生参与发现和分类新的CT降解微生物的科学，产生的数据将被整合到该项目的研究目标。此外，这里产生的科学数据将通过一个互动的、基于网络的生物信息学平台更广泛地传播给科学界。作为综合研究和教育目标的一部分，这项研究将产生CT微生物相互作用的基础知识，直接应用于农业，工业和卫生资源管理。目前，介导微生物CT降解的微生物、酶和途径的多样性尚不清楚。该研究项目的总体目标是测试中心假设，即CTs的耐受性和降解机制在整个生态系统的微生物基因组中广泛编码，但目前代表了一种神秘的微生物代谢。该项目跟踪从生物体到生态系统尺度的CT代谢，确定生物体CT耐受性和降解的酶催化剂，微生物群落对CT扰动的协调反应，以及整个生态系统的CT代谢程度。在这里，平行分离和社区基因组学配对表达分析和高分辨率CT代谢物数据将阐明介导CT降解和抗性的生物体，酶和代谢。该研究项目的成果包括（1）CT的微生物生理学和生态学知识，（2）发现厌氧微生物可能共有的新型降解酶，（3）开发生物和代谢物特征的CT库，从而鉴定微生物多酚及其降解产物。

Compounds known as condensed tannins (CTs) impact the ability of microbial communities to synthesize biofuels, detoxify industrial waste streams, perform critical carbon cycling in soils, and fuel nutrition in humans and animals. Despite their global importance, microbial responses to CTs are currently a mystery. This research project targets this substantial knowledge gap to identify the microorganisms and their enzymes that degrade CTs across a range of ecosystems. Beyond scientific advances, this project will also support significant curricular development in the introductory microbiology course at The Ohio State University. Through the development of a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), this project will allow hundreds of undergraduate student-scientists to perform authentic research; experiences shown to enhance scientific education and boost retention of students in scientific disciplines. This project will create a modified undergraduate laboratory class where CURE students participate in the discovery and classification of CT degrading microorganisms new to science, generating data that will be integrated into the research aims of this project. Additionally, the scientific data generated here will be transmitted more broadly to the scientific community via the production of an interactive, web-based bioinformatics platform. As part of the integrated research and educational objectives, this research will generate fundamental knowledge of CT-microbe interactions with direct applications to agricultural, industrial, and health resource management. Today the diversity of microorganisms, enzymes, and pathways mediating microbial CT degradation are currently unknown. The overarching goal of this research project is to test the central hypothesis that mechanisms for tolerance and degradation of CTs are widely encoded in microbial genomes across ecosystems, yet currently represent a cryptic microbial metabolism. This project tracks CT metabolism from organismal to ecosystem scales, identifying the enzymatic catalysts of organismal CT tolerance and degradation, the coordinated responses to CT perturbation in microbial communities, and the extent of CT metabolisms across ecosystems. Here, parallel isolate and community genomics paired to expression analyses and high-resolution CT metabolite data will elucidate the organisms, enzymes, and metabolisms mediating CT degradation and resistance. Outcomes from this research project include (1) knowledge of the microbial physiology and ecology of CTs, (2) discovery of novel degradative enzymes that are likely common to anaerobic microorganisms, (3) development of a CT library of biological and metabolite signatures resulting in the identification of microbial polyphenolics and their degradation products.