COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: URoL : Epigenetics 2: Predicting phenotypic and eco-evolutionary consequences of environmental-energetic-epigenetic linkages

生物可以通过对DNA的表观遗传修饰来适应环境变化，这种修饰改变了解释遗传指令的方式，而不改变DNA密码本身。虽然这些对生物体表型或功能的修改是可逆的，但其中一些可能会被后代遗传，可能会从单个基因组产生多个可遗传的结果，并影响生态和进化结果。该项目使用共生、代谢复杂的造礁珊瑚作为模型系统，测试生理、表观遗传和代谢状态之间的联系，并预测种群和群落动态如何受到表观遗传调节表型的影响。这项工作将通过描绘无处不在的生物能量过程、表观遗传学和生态进化结果之间的基本联系(生命规则)来推进生物学知识。更广泛的影响活动与项目的综合方法并行，将来自环境x能源学x表观遗传学x教育生态学的见解连接到一个E5平台。E5平台将提供i)早期职业STEM培训，ii)当地和全球社区教育，以及iii)开放科学、量化方法和研究重现性的教育资源。此外，这一E5平台将通过将地方和全球倡议结合起来，重点关注STEM中代表性不足的群体，培训和告知下一代不同的科学家和公众。该项目研究线粒体中的营养代谢如何产生辅因子和能量，这些辅因子和能量将指导细胞核中的表观遗传机制调节基因组功能，以适当地对环境条件做出反应。环境响应的代谢功能和能量-表观遗传联系是复杂的新出现表型的驱动因素。为了阐明与表观遗传学有关的生命规则的基础关系，该项目将使用以造礁珊瑚为重点的综合实验和建模方法，以：1)通过跨环境梯度的季节性采样，将营养供应的代谢物与表观遗传和生物状态联系起来；2)扩展当前共生生物的动态能量预算(DEB)模型，以进一步整合营养共生和钙化的关键方面；3)通过反复暴露于温度和营养的增加来实验调节新陈代谢和表观遗传状态，以测试代内和跨代表观遗传；4)使用DEB理论识别与表观遗传调控相关的能量学变化，并将这些亚有机体过程与更高水平的组织联系起来；以及5)将发现整合到一个可推广的、可预测的生态进化模型中，该模型将营养相互作用、代谢状态和随后的表观遗传效应与调节有机体过程和生态进化结果的时间尺度联系起来。这项工作将为生态系统工程海洋无脊椎动物的环境表观遗传现象提供特征。这一特征包括确定表观遗传“记忆”的机制和程度，包括在世代内和世代之间。通过包括由表观遗传学传播的环境遗产信息，该项目将促进基于组织和基于人口的模型，并提高预测对急性和慢性环境信号的反应的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Living organisms may acclimate to environmental changes through epigenetic modifications to DNA, which alter the way genetic instructions are interpreted without altering the DNA code itself. While these modifications to organismal phenotype or function can be reversible, some of them may be inherited by offspring, potentially producing multiple, heritable outcomes from a single genome and affecting ecological and evolutionary outcomes. This project uses symbiotic, metabolically complex reef building corals as a model system to test the connections between physiological, epigenetic, and metabolic states, and predict how population and community dynamics are influenced by epigenetically-modulated phenotypes. This work will advance biological knowledge by delineating fundamental links (Rules of Life) between ubiquitous organismal energetic processes, epigenetics, and eco-evolutionary outcomes. The Broader Impacts activities parallel the project's integrative approach, linking insights from Environment x Energetics x Epigenetics x Ecology for Education into an E5 platform. The E5 platform will provide i) early career STEM training, ii) local and global community education, and iii) educational resources for open science, quantitative approaches, and research reproducibility. Further, this E5 platform will train and inform the next generation of diverse scientists and public by combining local and global initiatives focusing on groups underrepresented in STEM. This project examines how nutrient metabolism in the mitochondria generates cofactors and energy that will instruct the epigenetic machinery in the cell nucleus to modulate genome function to appropriately respond to environmental conditions. Environmentally-responsive metabolic function and energetic-epigenetic linkages act as drivers of complex emergent phenotypes. To elucidate relationships that are the basis for Rules of Life with respect to epigenetics, this project will use integrative experimental and modeling approaches focused on reef building corals to: 1) link nutritionally-provisioned metabolites with epigenetic and organismal state through seasonal sampling across environmental gradients; 2) expand current Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) models for symbiotic organisms to further integrate critical facets of nutritional symbiosis and calcification; 3) experimentally modulate metabolic and therefore epigenetic states through repeated exposure to increased temperature and nutrients, to test intra- and trans-generational epigenetic inheritance; 4) use DEB theory to identify shifts in energetics associated with epigenetic modulation, and link these sub-organismal processes to higher levels of organization; and 5) integrate findings into a generalizable, predictive eco-evolutionary model that links nutritional interactions, metabolic states, and subsequent epigenetic effects to the timescales regulating organismal processes and eco-evolutionary outcomes. This effort will provide characterization of environmental epigenetic phenomena in ecosystem-engineering marine invertebrates. This characterization includes determining the mechanisms and the degree of epigenetic 'memory' both within and across generations. By including information on environmental legacies, propagated by epigenetics, this project will advance both organismal and population-based models and improve capacity to predict responses to acute and chronic environmental signals.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.