CAREER: Harnessing horizontal gene transfer to engineer environmental microbiomes in situ

职业：利用水平基因转移原位改造环境微生物组

• 批准号: 2237052
• 负责人: Lauren Stadler
• 金额: $ 55.36万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-02-01 至 2028-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2237052&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Harnessing; horizontal; gene; transfer

Microbiomes are communities of microorganisms found in natural and built environments. Microbiomes are vital to our ecosystems and environment. They drive global biogeochemical cycles and can be harnessed to drive various environmental and sustainable engineering processes including wastewater treatment and resource recovery, food production, and energy generation. This CAREER project will explore the development and validation of engineered microbiomes for wastewater resource recovery using horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Two key goals of this CAREER project are to 1) develop and demonstrate novel HGT systems for engineering wastewater microbiomes to enhance resource recovery from organic wastes and 2) evaluate and unravel the environmental and ecological factors that control the structure, function, and long-term stability of the proposed engineered microbiomes. The successful completion of this project will benefit society through the generation of new fundamental knowledge to advance environmental microbiome engineering with the goal of developing more efficient and sustainable wastewater treatment and resource recovery processes. Additional benefits to society will be achieved through education and training including the mentoring of one graduate and one undergraduate student, and high-school STEM teacher trainees at Rice University.Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the movement of DNA between organisms, is central to microbial community function and evolution. If harnessed properly, HGT could be used to engineer microbiomes for environmental bioremediation, the selective inactivation of microbial pathogens, or the recovery of valuable chemicals from wastewater. However, critical knowledge gaps remain that hinder the successful and reproducible engineering of environmental microbiomes via HGT, including how to best deliver functional genes, how to metabolically engineer unculturable microbes, and how to identify the environmental conditions that promote the stability and function of a gene after HGT. The overarching goal of this CAREER project is to develop and validate novel and safe strategies for harnessing HGT for environmental microbiome engineering. The specific objectives of the research are to: (1) develop donor and plasmid-based systems for delivering functional genes to environmental microbial communities; (2) characterize environmental and ecological factors that control HGT rates, host range and stability of functional genes delivered via HGT in a microbial community; and (3) demonstrate in situ editing of a wastewater microbiome by HGT to enhance resource recovery from organic wastes in an acid fermentation reactor with the goal of overcoming a critical bottleneck in lignocellulosic bioconversion. By converging and integrating synthetic biology and environmental engineering, the Principal Investigator hopes to develop and validate novel tools and strategies to advance the design and control of engineered microbiomes for sustainable environmental remediation, wastewater treatment, and resource recovery. The proposed research activities will be integrated with an education plan that focuses on increasing knowledge of ethical issues in synthetic biology and microbiome engineering and revamping ethics curriculum for environmental engineering/science courses. The educational and outreach goals of this CAREER project will be implemented through (1) a research experience for teachers (RET) for high school STEM teachers in Houston; (2) the co-development of curricular modules on bioethics for high school and undergraduate courses; and (3) the dissemination of the teacher training modules through a workshop for Houston-area high school teachers and by making them publicly available online.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.

微生物组是在自然和建筑环境中发现的微生物群落。微生物组对于我们的生态系统和环境至关重要。它们推动全球生物地球化学周期，并可以利用以推动各种环境和可持续工程过程，包括废水处理以及资源回收，粮食生产和能源产生。该职业项目将探索使用水平基因转移（HGT）进行废水资源回收的工程微生物组的开发和验证。该职业项目的两个关键目标是1）开发并展示了用于工程废水微生物组的新型HGT系统，以增强有机废物中的资源回收，2）评估和揭示控制拟议工程微生物组的结构，功能和长期稳定性的环境和生态因素。该项目的成功完成将通过产生新的基本知识来促进环境微生物组工程，以开发更高效，更可持续的废水处理和资源恢复过程，从而使社会受益。通过教育和培训，将对社会的额外利益，包括指导一名研究生和一名本科生，以及赖斯大学的高中茎教师学员。Horizo​​ntal基因转移（HGT），DNA在生物体之间的运动，是微生物社区功能和进化的核心。如果适当利用，HGT可用于设计微生物组，以进行环境生物修复，选择性灭活微生物病原体或从废水中回收有价值的化学物质。但是，临界知识差距仍然阻碍了通过HGT成功和可重复的环境微生物组合的工程，包括如何最好地传递功能性基因，如何代谢工程师无法培养的微生物以及如何识别HGT后促进基因的稳定性和功能的环境条件。该职业项目的总体目标是制定和验证新颖且安全的策略来利用HGT用于环境微生物组工程。该研究的具体目标是：（1）开发基于供体和质粒的系统，以将功能基因传递给环境微生物群落； （2）表征控制HGT速率，宿主范围以及通过HGT在微生物群落中传递的功能基因的稳定性的环境和生态因素； （3）证明了HGT对废水微生物组的原位编辑，以增强酸发酵反应器中有机废物的资源回收，目的是克服木质纤维素生物转化中的关键瓶颈。通过融合和整合合成生物学和环境工程，主要研究人员希望开发和验证新颖的工具和策略，以推动工程微生物组的设计和控制，以进行可持续的环境修复，废水处理以及资源恢复。拟议的研究活动将与一项教育计划集成，该计划的重点是对合成生物学和微生物组工程学中的道德问题的知识，并改进环境工程/科学课程的伦理课程。该职业项目的教育和外展目标将通过（1）为休斯顿的高中STEM教师的教师（RET）进行研究； （2）在高中和本科课程的生物伦理学课程模块的共同开发中； （3）通过休斯顿地区高中教师的研讨会传播教师培训模块，并通过在线公开发行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估标准通过评估来获得支持的。