BBSRC-NSF/BIO: The impact of public vs private metabolism on the stability of microbial communities within natural hosts

该项目增进了对不同微生物物种如何合作分享营养的理解。它增加了制定有效战略以对抗病原体所需的知识库，这些病原体利用合作互动感染植物、动物和人类。通过将经验实验工作和严格的计算模型相结合，该研究调查了对有限营养的竞争如何影响微生物群落的组成、稳定性和功能。解决这一问题需要学生按照结合合成生物学、微生物种群生态学、分子生物学和数学建模的跨学科方法进行培训。该项目正在对一名研究生和至少两名本科生进行微生物系统生物学前沿实验和计算方法方面的培训。研究成果正在被整合到研究生和本科生的课堂上，包括首席研究员最近开发的一门数学建模课程。为了扩大参与和增强多样性，利用国家科学基金会资助的针对妇女和少数族裔学生的计划来确定和招募项目人员。该项目是马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校(美国)和埃克塞特大学(英国)的研究人员合作完成的。不同微生物种类的复杂群落在自然生态系统的正常运作以及它们所栖息的植物、动物和人类宿主的健康方面发挥着至关重要的作用。为了生存和生长，微生物必须从他们的环境中获得有限的营养。代谢相互作用，如营养竞争，是微生物群落形成、稳定和发挥作用的关键。营养获取通常涉及分泌昂贵的代谢化合物，以捕获或分解外部环境中的资源。这种被称为“公共新陈代谢”的合作策略是有风险的，因为分解产物可能会丢失到环境中或被其他物种利用。初步数据支持这样一种假设，即涉及公共或私人新陈代谢的营养获取策略代表着两种截然相反的生存方式，其成功与否取决于环境。这个项目的目标是通过将实验和计算方法的组合应用于两个易处理的合成系统来验证这一假设，这两个系统涉及环境酵母酿酒酵母和植物病原菌稻瘟病菌。这项美英合作项目由美国国家科学基金会和UKRI生物技术和生物科学研究委员会支持。在美国国家科学基金会内，该项目由分子和细胞生物科学部的系统和合成生物学分部以及综合组织系统分部的综合生态生理学项目共同资助。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。

This project generates enhanced understanding of how different microbial species cooperatively share nutrients. It adds to the knowledge base required to develop effective strategies to combat pathogens that exploit cooperative interactions to infect plants, animal and humans. By combining empirical experimental work and rigorous computational modelling, the research investigates how competition for limited nutrients influences the composition, stability and functioning of microbial communities. Tackling this problem requires students to be trained according to an interdisciplinary approach that combines synthetic biology, microbial population ecology, molecular biology and mathematical modeling. This project is training one graduate student and at least two undergraduate students in cutting-edge experimental and computational methods in microbial systems biology. The research results are being integrated into graduate and undergraduate classes, including a mathematical modeling course recently developed by the principal investigator. To broaden participation and enhance diversity, NSF-funded programs for women and minorities students are leveraged to identify and recruit project personnel. This project is a collaboration between researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (US) and the University of Exeter (UK). Complex communities of diverse microbial species play essential roles in the proper functioning of natural ecosystems and the health of plant, animal and human hosts which they inhabit. To survive and grow, microbes must acquire limited nutrients from their environment. Metabolic interactions such as nutrient competition are key to the formation, stability and functioning of microbial communities. Nutrient acquisition frequently involves secretion of costly metabolic compounds that capture or breakdown resources in the external environment. This cooperative strategy, termed “public metabolism”, is risky as the breakdown products can be lost into the environment or exploited by other species. Preliminary data support the hypothesis that nutrient acquisition strategies involving either public or private metabolism represent two opposing approaches to survival, the success of which is environment dependent. The goal of this project is to test this hypothesis by applying a combination of experimental and computational approaches to two tractable synthetic systems involving the environmental yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the plant pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae. Both in vitro and in planta experiments will be performed and mathematically modeled to yield general conclusions about microbial interactions and community stability from system-specific observations.This collaborative US/UK project is supported by the US National Science Foundation and the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.Within the US National Science Foundation this project is co-funded by the Systems and Synthetic Biology cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences and the Integrative Ecological Physiology program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.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.