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

该行动资助了NSF生物学博士后研究奖学金，用于研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式对生活规则领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。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，当基因调控被进化改变时，它可以导致新性状的出现。然而，基因调控究竟是如何被控制的还没有被完全理解。他将研究以多种形式的环境依赖性发展而闻名的角甲虫，以了解环境如何影响基因调节以促进多样性。该研究员还将执行K-12的外展和教育。营养反应性和雌雄二态性状是进化最快的表型类别之一，然而像增强子和启动子这样的顺式调控元件在促进或阻碍这种多样化方面的贡献仍然相对未被探索。本研究旨在更好地了解分子和环境因素之间的相互作用，在甲虫头角的发育和进化中，具有行为和生态意义的结构。在大多数物种中，角的形成仅限于雄性，并且可能根据幼虫的营养进一步阐述为有角或无角的雄性形态。在其他物种中，这种对营养有反应的发育已经失去，甚至被逆转，以至于雌性现在长出了精致的头角。本研究将1)研究不同种类的甲虫角发育中染色质可及性和调控元件序列的调控作用；2)干扰角基因网络功能，以获得角形成的表观遗传结构机制；3)分析调节因子是如何在物种间驱动甲虫角形状和大小的多样化的。总的来说，这一建议将为顺式调控元件在生物多样性相关的多个轴上的特征进化发展中的作用提供基本的见解。这项研究将直接与两项更广泛的影响工作相结合，包括在印第安纳大学创造高中暑期研究生物信息学的机会，以及为印第安纳中南部的K-12学校开发基因组学的教育资源。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。

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.