Collaborative research: Functional genomic investigations of iron and carbon cycle coupling in select keystone marine Bacteria heterotrophs

合作研究：选定关键海洋细菌异养生物中铁和碳循环耦合的功能基因组研究

• 批准号: 2049301
• 负责人: Katherine Barbeau
• 金额: $ 45.61万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego Scripps Inst of Oceanography
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-06-01 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2049301&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; research; Functional; genomic; investigations

As a scarce but essential micronutrient for microbial growth in the marine environment, iron plays a critical role in supporting marine primary productivity and is tightly coupled to the cycling of carbon and other nutrients. Significant progress in recent years has been made in understanding the distribution of iron in the oceans and the impact of iron limitation on phytoplankton. Many questions remain, however, about the extensive biogeochemical linkages that exist between iron and carbon in marine systems. Bacteria represent a crucial and understudied node in this network. The proposed work will explore linkages between the carbon and iron cycles in marine systems in the context of the heterotrophic bacteria that are the primary drivers of the turnover of organic matter in the oceans. The project will support a postdoctoral researcher, as well as undergraduate interns. UCSD Bioengineering Senior Design Thesis students will be entrained to develop projects related to synthetic biology. The team will also host a 3-day workshop, in collaboration with Scripps Educational Alliances and the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), to develop Next Generation Science Standards and CA Science Framework-aligned activities and resources for high school teachers in California. Educational activities will be based on “phenomena” associated with the proposed research, and after appropriate testing and refinement by local science teachers, will be broadly disseminated by the SDCOE. A functional genomics approach will be employed, using model organisms that have been shown to represent a spectrum in terms of their carbon substrate utilization and lifestyle strategies. Alteromonas spp., with numerous TonB-dependent outer membrane receptors and hydrolytic enzyme capabilities, are known for their ability to degrade and assimilate complex (i.e. high molecular weight) marine dissolved organic matter. In contrast, well-studied Roseobacters, with large numbers of inner-membrane transporters, specialize in the transport of low- molecular-weight organic matter. This project asks fundamental questions about how iron substrate utilization and iron-related physiology contribute to the known niche specificity of these organisms and impact carbon processing. These questions will be addressed through a combination of transcriptomic, mutagenic and experimental approaches with model strains. This work aims to advance the field so that conceptual models of microbial iron recycling can be integrated with current conceptual models of organic carbon recycling by marine bacteria. In addition, the functional genomics approach proposed here will identify and validate targets for meta-omic, meta- proteomic, and bioinformatic investigations of the links between iron and carbon cycling in the ocean, enabling better interrogation of existing and planned large-scale ocean datasets such as Tara Oceans, GEOTRACES, and BioGeoSCAPES.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.

铁作为海洋环境中微生物生长的一种稀缺但必不可少的微量营养素，在支持海洋初级生产力方面发挥着关键作用，并与碳和其他营养素的循环密切相关。近年来，在了解海洋中铁的分布以及铁限制对浮游植物的影响方面取得了重大进展。然而，关于海洋系统中铁和碳之间存在的广泛的生物地球化学联系，仍然存在许多问题。细菌代表了这个网络中一个关键的和未被充分研究的节点。拟议的工作将从异养细菌的角度探讨海洋系统中碳和铁循环之间的联系，异养细菌是海洋有机物周转的主要驱动力。该项目将支持一名博士后研究员和本科实习生。UCSD生物工程高级设计论文的学生将被引导开发与合成生物学相关的项目。该团队还将与斯克里普斯教育联盟和圣地亚哥县教育办公室（SDCOE）合作举办为期3天的研讨会，为加州的高中教师制定下一代科学标准和CA科学框架一致的活动和资源。教育活动将以与拟议研究有关的“现象”为基础，经过当地科学教师的适当测试和改进，将由SDCOE广泛传播。将采用功能基因组学方法，使用已被证明代表一个频谱的碳底物利用和生活方式策略方面的模式生物。交替单胞菌属，具有多种TonB依赖性外膜受体和水解酶能力的海洋生物，因其降解和同化复杂（即高分子量）海洋溶解有机物的能力而闻名。相比之下，研究充分的玫瑰杆菌，具有大量的内膜转运蛋白，专门运输低分子量的有机物质。该项目提出了关于铁底物利用和铁相关生理学如何有助于这些生物体的已知生态位特异性并影响碳加工的基本问题。这些问题将通过转录组学，诱变和实验方法与模型菌株相结合来解决。这项工作的目的是推进该领域，使微生物铁回收的概念模型可以与目前的海洋细菌有机碳回收的概念模型相结合。此外，这里提出的功能基因组学方法将识别和验证海洋铁和碳循环之间联系的元组学，Meta蛋白质组学和生物信息学研究的目标，从而能够更好地询问现有和计划的大规模海洋数据集，如塔拉海洋，GEOTRACES，该奖项反映了NSF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。