Postdoctoral Fellowship FY22: Cis-regulatory basis of developmental plasticity and growth in the development and evolution of beetle horns, a class of highly diversified weapons

这项行动资助了NSF博士后生物学研究奖学金FY 22，综合研究调查基因组，环境和表型之间的生命管理相互作用的规则。该研究金支持研究员的研究和培训，以创新的方式为生活规则领域做出贡献。生物体的发育是通过基因和营养等环境条件的相互作用来调节的。因此，基因调控（打开或关闭基因）是控制发育的许多方面（如生长）的重要控制点。此外，当基因调控被进化修改时，它可以导致新性状的出现。然而，基因调控究竟是如何控制的还没有完全了解。该研究员将研究角甲虫，这是众所周知的各种形式的环境依赖性发展，以了解环境如何影响基因调控，以促进多样性。该研究员还将进行K-12外联和教育。营养反应和雄性/雌性二型性状是进化最快的表型类别之一，但顺式调节元件如增强子和启动子在促进或阻碍这种多样化方面的贡献仍然相对未被探索。这项研究旨在更好地了解分子和环境因素之间的相互作用，在甲虫头角的发展和进化，行为和生态重要的结构。角的形成仅限于男性在大多数物种，并可能进一步阐述为替代角或无角的男性形态取决于幼虫的营养。在其他物种中，这种对营养反应的发育已经消失，甚至逆转，以至于雌性现在长出了精心制作的头角。该研究员将1）表征染色质可及性和调控元件序列在物种内甲虫角发育调控中的作用; 2）扰乱角基因网络功能，以获得对角形成背后的表观遗传结构的机械见解; 3）分析调控元件如何进化以推动甲虫角形状和大小的多样化。总的来说，这个建议将提供基本的洞察力顺式调控元件的作用，在进化发展的性状跨多个轴的生物多样性的相关性在整个生命之树。这项研究将直接与两个更广泛的影响力的努力，包括创造高中暑期研究机会，在生物信息学在印第安纳州大学和开发教育资源的K-12学校的基因组学在中南部印第安纳州。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准的支持。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY22, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. How organisms develop is regulated through the interactions of genes and environmental conditions like nutrition. Gene regulation (turning genes “on” or “off”) therefore is an important point of control for many aspects of development, such as growth. Further, when gene regulation is modified by evolution, it can lead to the emergence of new traits. Yet, exactly how gene regulation is controlled is not fully understood. The fellow will research horned beetles, which are well known for their diverse forms of environment-dependent development, in order to understand how environment affects gene regulation to promote diversity. The fellow will also perform K-12 outreach and education. Nutrition-responsive and male/female dimorphic traits are among the fastest evolving phenotype classes, yet the contribution of cis-regulatory elements like enhancers and promoters in facilitating or hindering such diversification is still relatively unexplored. This research seeks to better understand the interplay between molecular and environmental factors in the development and evolution of beetle head horns, behaviorally and ecologically significant structures. Horn formation is restricted to males in most species, and may be further elaborated as alternative horned or hornless male morphs depending on larval nutrition. In other species, such nutrition-responsive development has been lost or even reversed such that females now grow elaborate head horns. The fellow will 1) characterize the roles of chromatin accessibility and regulatory element sequence in regulation of beetle horn development within species; 2) perturb horn gene network function to gain mechanistic insight into the epigenetic architecture underlying horn formation; and 3) analyze how regulatory elements have evolved to drive diversification of beetle horn shape and size across species. Collectively, this proposal will provide fundamental insight into the role of cis-regulatory elements in the evolutionary development of traits across multiple axes of biological diversification of relevance across the tree of life. This research will be directly integrated with two broader impact efforts including creating high school summer research opportunities in bioinformatics at Indiana University and developing educational resources on genomics for K-12 schools in south-central Indiana.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.