NSFGEO-NERC: The Blueprint for Marine Biomineralization in a Changing Climate

NSFGEO-NERC：气候变化中海洋生物矿化的蓝图

• 批准号: 2227729
• 负责人: Jennifer Fehrenbacher
• 金额: $ 15.36万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-06-01 至 2025-05-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2227729&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSFGEO; NERC; Blueprint; Marine; Biomineralization

This is a project jointly funded by the National Science Foundation Directorate of Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget and the investigators associated with its own investigators and component of the work. This project will study shell formation in an important marine organism, the foraminifera. Foraminifera are sand-grain-sized, shell-forming plankton. They are common in the modern ocean and in the fossil record. Their shell composition depends on ocean conditions during growth, and so their fossils are used to record Earth’s climate history. Foraminifera shells also play an important role in the carbon cycle. They are responsible for up to 80% of the carbon that is deposited on the seafloor. Understanding shell formation is important because changes in ocean warming and pH threatens foraminiferal survival. However, foraminiferal shell formation is not well understood. In part this is because the genome for these species is unknown. A genome is required to identify proteins responsible for shell forming processes. This study will close this knowledge gap by identifying key shell proteins in two species. The project will grow specimens under conditions that mimic likely future climate and will identify differences in shell proteins in response to growth conditions. The results will provide a 'blueprint for shell formation' in foraminifera. The genome and protein sequence datasets will be useful to researchers in marine biology and chemistry, evolution, climate science, and material science. Broader impacts include graduate and undergraduate student field research experience and training. International participants will also gain experience growing foraminifera in the laboratory.This multidisciplinary project will establish the molecular biological controls of biomineralization in two model species of single-celled foraminifera. This is crucial for quantifying the marine calcite budget and assessing the impact of calcification feedbacks on future atmospheric carbon dioxide, as well as producing accurate interpretation of the foraminiferal shell geochemical archive that underpins future climate change projections. Despite decades of research into how foraminifera biomineralization, our understanding lags far behind other marine calcifiers, owing to a lack of genome/transcriptome information that is vital for identification of foraminifera shell matrix proteins (SMPs). SMPs in the shell’s organic matrix layers trigger nucleation of calcium carbonate and are responsible for shell formation and its geochemical properties. The identification of SMPs will aid in our understanding of how biomineralization will respond to future environmental change and thus it is imperative that we resolve biomineralization mechanisms in these critically important marine calcifiers. This project addresses that need. The interdisciplinary team’s expertise will be capitalized to produce the genome and transcriptome data required via Single Cell Sequencing and exploit innovative high throughput microfluidic approaches to identify and characterize key SMPs in foraminifera biomineralization. Foraminifera culturing experiments will be conducted to investigate molecular/protein responses to different climate scenarios. The project team combines a unique set of skills that enable us, for the first time, to investigate all aspects of the biological control of the biomineralization process within the foraminifera. By linking genes, transcripts, proteins, and calcite formation our aim is to generate a ‘blueprint of biomineralization’. Identifying these key molecules will provide the first ever opportunity to identify any changes in the foraminifera SMPs in response to changes in temperature and pH, and assess the vulnerability of foraminiferal biomineralization to future climate scenarios.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.

这是一个由国家科学基金会地球科学理事会（NSF/GEO）和联合王国国家环境研究理事会（NERC）通过NSF/GEO-NERC牵头机构协议联合资助的项目。该协议允许美国/英国提交一份联合提案，并由研究者拥有最大预算比例的机构进行同行评审。在成功联合确定授标后，每个机构为与本机构调查员和工作组成部分有关的预算和调查员提供资金。该项目将研究一种重要的海洋生物-有孔虫的壳的形成。有孔虫是沙粒大小的，形成外壳的浮游生物。它们在现代海洋和化石记录中很常见。它们的外壳成分取决于生长过程中的海洋条件，因此它们的化石被用来记录地球的气候历史。有孔虫壳在碳循环中也发挥着重要作用。它们负责高达80%的沉积在海底的碳。了解壳的形成很重要，因为海洋变暖和pH值的变化威胁着有孔虫的生存。然而，有孔虫壳的形成还没有得到很好的理解。部分原因是这些物种的基因组是未知的。需要基因组来鉴定负责壳形成过程的蛋白质。这项研究将通过确定两个物种中的关键外壳蛋白来缩小这一知识差距。该项目将在模拟未来可能气候的条件下种植标本，并将确定贝壳蛋白质对生长条件的反应差异。这些结果将为有孔虫的“壳形成”提供一个蓝图。基因组和蛋白质序列数据集将对海洋生物学和化学、进化、气候科学和材料科学的研究人员有用。更广泛的影响包括研究生和本科生的实地研究经验和培训。国际参与者还将获得在实验室中培养有孔虫的经验。这个多学科项目将建立两种单细胞有孔虫模式物种生物矿化的分子生物学控制。这对于量化海洋方解石预算和评估钙化反馈对未来大气二氧化碳的影响，以及对支持未来气候变化预测的有孔虫壳地球化学档案进行准确解释至关重要。尽管对有孔虫如何生物矿化进行了数十年的研究，但由于缺乏对有孔虫壳基质蛋白（SMP）鉴定至关重要的基因组/转录组信息，我们的理解远远落后于其他海洋钙化物。壳的有机基质层中的SMP触发碳酸钙的成核，并负责壳的形成及其地球化学性质。SMPs的识别将有助于我们了解生物矿化将如何应对未来的环境变化，因此，我们必须解决这些至关重要的海洋钙化生物矿化机制。本项目满足了这一需求。该跨学科团队的专业知识将被利用来产生单细胞测序所需的基因组和转录组数据，并利用创新的高通量微流体方法来识别和表征有孔虫生物矿化中的关键SMPs。将进行有孔虫培养实验，以研究分子/蛋白质对不同气候情景的反应。该项目团队结合了一套独特的技能，使我们能够第一次调查有孔虫内生物矿化过程的生物控制的各个方面。通过将基因、转录本、蛋白质和方解石的形成联系起来，我们的目标是生成一个“生物矿化的蓝图”。确定这些关键分子将提供有史以来第一次有机会确定有孔虫SMP响应温度和pH值变化的任何变化，并评估有孔虫生物矿化对未来气候情景的脆弱性。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。