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

生物体可以通过对DNA的表观遗传修饰来适应环境变化，表观遗传修饰改变了遗传指令的解释方式，而不改变DNA密码本身。虽然这些对生物表型或功能的修饰是可逆的，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种可遗传的结果，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来测试生理，表观遗传和代谢状态之间的联系，并预测人口和社区动态如何受到表观遗传调制表型的影响。这项工作将通过描绘无处不在的有机体能量过程，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该项目的综合方法并行，将环境x能量学x表观遗传学x生态学教育的见解链接到E5平台。E5平台将提供i）早期职业STEM培训，ii）本地和全球社区教育，iii）开放科学，定量方法和研究再现性的教育资源。此外，E5平台将通过结合本地和全球举措，重点关注STEM中代表性不足的群体，为下一代多元化的科学家和公众提供培训和信息。 该项目研究了线粒体中的营养代谢如何产生辅助因子和能量，这些辅助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，以适当地响应环境条件。环境响应性代谢功能和能量-表观遗传联系充当复杂紧急表型的驱动因素。为了阐明生命规则与表观遗传学的基础关系，该项目将使用集中于造礁珊瑚的综合实验和建模方法：1）通过跨环境梯度的季节性采样，将营养供应代谢物与表观遗传和生物体状态联系起来; 2）扩展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）通过反复暴露于升高的温度和营养物质，实验性地调节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理论来识别与表观遗传调节相关的能量学变化，并将这些亚有机体过程与更高层次的组织联系起来; 5）将研究结果整合到一个可推广的预测性生态进化模型中，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。这项工作将提供生态系统工程海洋无脊椎动物的环境表观遗传现象的表征。这种表征包括确定机制和程度的表观遗传的“记忆”内和跨代。通过纳入表观遗传学传播的环境遗产信息，该项目将推进生物和基于人群的模型，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。

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.