URoL: MTM 1: Chemistry of cnidarian symbiosis: microbiomes role in association, morphogenesis, and protection

URoL：MTM 1：刺胞动物共生化学：微生物组在关联、形态发生和保护中的作用

• 批准号: 2025476
• 负责人: Sandra Loesgen
• 金额: $ 49.99万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2025476&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: URoL; MTM; Chemistry; cnidarian; symbiosis

Many cnidarians, including corals, anemones, and jellyfish, contain photosynthetic algae that supply them with critical nutrients. Habitat changes associated with human activity can destabilize this symbiotic relationship, leading to a rapid rise in recent coral bleaching events. These bleaching events often have devastating effects on reef ecosystems, which are amongst the biodiverse communities on the planet. Although there is increasing evidence that the bacterial and fungal microbiome has an important role in the physiology of healthy animals, relatively little is known about the microbiome of cnidarians or the role of their microbiome in mediating cnidarian-algae symbiosis. This research project will systematically examine the microorganisms associated with cnidarians, the compounds these microbes produce, and the effects these compounds have on cnidarian physiology and symbiosis. The results from these experiments will provide key insights into cnidarian biology, which is urgently needed for the design and implementation of global preservation efforts. Furthermore, this research is likely to yield general insights into animal-microorganism relationships, since cnidarians are one of the oldest animal lineages and provide an important evolutionary perspective, the diversity of cnidarians allows comparative approaches, and the strong interactions in this system will expose general principles. In addition, this project has a strong education and public outreach component, including a teacher’s workshop to bring new lab-based curriculum to local public-school districts. The symbiotic relationship between cnidarians and phototrophic dinoflagellates (family Symbiodiniaceae) has a critical role in cnidarian physiology. Recent findings suggest that both the cnidarian host and the symbiotic dinoflagellates are associated with complex bacterial and fungal microbiomes. However, little is known about the diversity of these communities, their secondary metabolome, or how they affect cnidarian physiology and cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis. The proposed research will address this knowledge gap by using metagenomics to describe the cnidarian-associated microbial communities, comparative metabolomics analysis to identify compounds produced by both the host animal and microbes, and in vivo assays to determine the effects of microbes and metabolites on cnidarian physiology. The first aim of this project will identify the effects of the microbiome on coral-algae symbiosis using the anemone Exaiptasia. This research will describe the bacterial and fungal diversity in the host, the effects of microbiome manipulation on coral bleaching, the metabolome of symbiotic and aposymbiotic hosts, and the effects of metabolites from cultured microbes. The second aim of this project will determine the effects of the microbiome on coral development and symbiosis using the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea. Life cycle transitions in this jellyfish are dependent on the presence of symbiotic dinoflagellates, and this project will identify the bacterial and fungal community in Cassiopea, the metabolome of different life cycles, and the effects of the microbiome on animal development.This project is jointly supported by the NSF Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Big Idea initiative and the Chemistry of Life Processes (CLP) Program in the Division of Chemistry at NSF.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.

许多刺胞动物，包括珊瑚、海葵和水母，都含有能进行光合作用的藻类，为它们提供重要的营养物质。与人类活动相关的栖息地变化可能会破坏这种共生关系的稳定，导致最近的珊瑚白化事件迅速增加。这些白化事件通常会对珊瑚礁生态系统造成破坏性影响，而珊瑚礁生态系统是地球上生物多样性群落之一。尽管越来越多的证据表明细菌和真菌微生物组在健康动物的生理学中具有重要作用，但人们对刺胞动物的微生物组或其微生物组在介导刺胞动物-藻类共生中的作用知之甚少。该研究项目将系统地研究与刺胞动物有关的微生物、这些微生物产生的化合物以及这些化合物对刺胞动物生理和共生的影响。这些实验的结果将为刺胞动物生物学提供重要的见解，这对于全球保护工作的设计和实施来说是迫切需要的。此外，这项研究可能会对动物与微生物的关系产生一般性的见解，因为刺胞动物是最古老的动物谱系之一，并提供了重要的进化视角，刺胞动物的多样性允许采用比较方法，并且该系统中的强烈相互作用将揭示一般原理。此外，该项目还具有强大的教育和公共宣传成分，包括举办教师研讨会，为当地公立学区带来新的基于实验室的课程。刺胞动物和光养甲藻（共生甲藻科）之间的共生关系在刺胞动物生理学中起着至关重要的作用。最近的研究结果表明，刺胞动物宿主和共生甲藻都与复杂的细菌和真菌微生物组相关。然而，人们对这些群落的多样性、它们的次级代谢组或它们如何影响刺胞动物生理和刺胞动物-甲藻共生知之甚少。拟议的研究将通过使用宏基因组学来描述与刺胞动物相关的微生物群落，使用比较代谢组学分析来识别宿主动物和微生物产生的化合物，以及体内测定来确定微生物和代谢物对刺胞动物生理学的影响，从而弥补这一知识差距。该项目的第一个目标是利用海葵 Exaiptasia 来确定微生物组对珊瑚藻共生的影响。这项研究将描述宿主中的细菌和真菌多样性、微生物组操纵对珊瑚白化的影响、共生和非共生宿主的代谢组，以及培养微生物代谢物的影响。该项目的第二个目标是利用倒置水母仙后座确定微生物组对珊瑚发育和共生的影响。这种水母的生命周期转变取决于共生甲藻的存在，该项目将确定仙后座中的细菌和真菌群落、不同生命周期的代谢组以及微生物组对动物发育的影响。该项目由美国国家科学基金会理解生命规则 (URoL) 大创意计划和生命过程化学 (CLP) 项目共同支持。 NSF 化学。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并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，被认为值得支持。