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

22 财年博士后奖学金：甲虫角（一类高度多样化的武器）发育和进化过程中的发育可塑性和增长的顺式调控基础

• 批准号: 2208912
• 负责人: Phillip Davidson
• 金额: $ 13.8万
• 依托单位: Davidson, Phillip Luke
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-06-01 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2208912&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Postdoctoral; Fellowship; FY22; Cis; regulatory

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.

该行动为22财年生物学的NSF博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，该研究研究了研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生活规则。奖学金支持对研究员的研究和培训，这些研究和培训将以创新的方式为生活规则做出贡献。通过基因和营养（如营养）的相互作用来调节生物体的发展方式。因此，基因调节（“ ON”或“ OFF”）是发展的许多方面（例如增长）的重要控制点。此外，当基因调节通过进化改变时，它可能导致新特征的出现。然而，确切的控制基因调控尚未完全理解。该研究员将研究角质甲虫，该甲虫以其潜水员形式的环境依赖性发展而闻名，以了解环境如何影响基因调节以促进多样性。该研究员还将进行K-12外展和教育。营养响应性和男性/女性二态性状是发展最快的表型类别之一，但是顺式调节元素（如增强子和启动子）在支持或阻碍这种多样化方面的贡献仍然相对出乎意料。这项研究旨在更好地了解甲壳虫头角的发展和演变，行为和生态意义上的结构，分子与环境因素之间的相互作用。角形成仅限于大多数物种中的雄性，并且可以进一步阐述为替代角或无角男性形态，具体取决于幼虫营养。在其他物种中，这种营养响应性发育已经丢失甚至逆转，使女性现在长出了精心的头部角。研究员的意愿1）表征染色质可及性和调节元件序列在物种内甲虫角发育中的作用； 2）扰动喇叭基因网络功能，以获取对角形成的表观遗传结构的机械洞察力； 3）分析调节元件如何发展以驱动甲虫角形和大小的多样化。总的来说，该提案将提供基本的见解，了解顺式调节元素在整个生命之树中相关性的多个生物学多样化的特征的进化发展中的作用。这项研究将直接与两项更广泛的影响力融合，包括在印第安纳大学创造高中夏季研究机会，并在印第安纳州中南部为K-12学校开发有关基因组学的教育资源。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过使用该基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的评估来评估CRITERIA CRITERIA CRITERIA的评估来通过评估来获得的支持。