CAREER: Microbial indicators Of Latent Dampness (MOLD)

家里的霉菌每年造成数十亿美元的损失。暴露在空气中对占美国人口8%的哮喘患者尤其有害；是儿童致残的主要原因。目前，气味、可见霉菌生长和潮湿是室内霉菌的最佳指标。然而，这些措施都是主观的。现有的定量方法侧重于鉴定发霉建筑物中生长的特定真菌种类，但物种因地区和家庭而异。该项目的目标是开发和验证一种新的定量测量工具，以评估任何种类真菌的生长和潜在的不良健康后果。这项研究的成功完成将通过提高对潮湿建筑物中发生的基本微生物过程的理解来保护人类健康。最终，一种新的测量工具将满足评估受洪水影响的家庭补救工作有效性的关键需求。环保人士和其他持份者将参与整个项目，以学习和提供反馈。本科研究人员也将参与这项研究，以加强研究生的储备，同时通过与K-8学生合作，提高沟通和教学技能。总之，这些努力增加了国家的STEM管道，同时提高了国家的科学素养。该项目的总体目标是建立一个基于物种独立代谢过程的基于证据的测量目标，用于评估家中霉菌生长。我们将确定和验证新的目标，以指示微生物的生长。总体假设是，真菌次级代谢途径的产物是独立于物种的，并且将是比测量任何特定物种更有效的霉菌生长指标。第一个目标是确定与潮湿环境中微生物生长一致相关的基本代谢过程和潜在微生物指标，这是由次级代谢过程更普遍，次级代谢产物的基因表达将更强烈和一致地与潮湿条件相关的假设驱动的。这一目标将通过收集50个未受潮房屋的灰尘，通过亚转录组学分析测量基因表达，并确定与潮湿条件最密切相关的过程来实现。这将通过在25个受潮和25个未受潮的对照家庭中对三个或更多的潜在指标进行研究来验证，以确定该指标是否与其他湿度测量相关联。结果将由利益相关者咨询委员会评估，环境从业者将在研讨会上了解室内微生物生长。这项研究的成功完成将为潮湿建筑物中发生的基本微生物过程提供新的见解，包括真菌中发生的代谢过程。最终，这项工作将促进我们对室内微生物动力学和人类暴露的基本理解，并为一套新的工具来测量室内霉菌以保护人类健康铺平道路。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Exposure to mold in homes costs billions of dollars every year. Exposure is particularly harmful to the 8% of the United States population that suffers from asthma; a leading cause of disability in children. Currently, odor, visible mold growth, and dampness are the best indicators of mold indoors. However, these measures are subjective. Existing quantitative methods focus on identifying specific fungal species that grow in moldy buildings, but species vary region-to-region and home-to-home. The goal of this project is to develop and validate a new quantitative measurement tool to assess growth of any species of fungi and potential adverse health outcomes. Successful completion of this research will protect human health through improved understanding of fundamental microbial processes that occur in damp buildings. Ultimately, a new measurement tool would fulfill a critical need to evaluate the effectiveness of remediation efforts for homes impacted by flooding. Environmental practitioners and other stakeholders will be engaged throughout the project to learn and provide feedback. Undergraduate researchers will also participate in the research to enhance the graduate student pipeline while also improving communication and teaching skills by working with K-8 students. Together, these efforts increase the Nation’s STEM pipeline while increasing the scientific literacy of the Nation.The overall goal of this project is to establish an evidence-based measurement target for evaluation of mold growth in homes based on species-independent metabolic processes. We will identify and validate novel targets to indicate microbial growth. The overall hypothesis is that products from secondary metabolic pathways of fungi are species-independent and will be a more effective indicator of mold growth than measurement of any specific species. The first objective is to identify fundamental metabolic processes and potential microbial indicators consistently associated with microbial growth in damp homes driven by the hypotheses that secondary metabolic processes are more prevalent and gene expression of secondary metabolic products will be more strongly and consistently associated with damp conditions. This objective will be achieved by collecting dust from 50 non-moisture-damaged homes to measure gene expression through metatranscriptomic analysis and identify the processes most strongly associated with damp conditions. This will be validated by studies of three or more of potential indicators in 25 damp and 25 non-moisture-damaged control homes to determine if the indicator is associated with other dampness measures. Results will be evaluated by a stakeholder advisory board, and environmental practitioners will learn about indoor microbial growth at a workshop. Successful completion of this research will provide new insights into fundamental microbial processes occurring in damp buildings, including metabolic processes occurring in fungi. Ultimately, this work will both advance our fundamental understanding of indoor microbial dynamics and human exposure as well as pave the way for a new suite of tools to measure mold indoors to protect human health.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.