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人造环境中发现的微生物群落。微生物对我们的生态系统和环境至关重要。它们驱动着全球生物地球化学循环，并可用于驱动各种环境和可持续工程过程，包括废水处理和资源回收、食品生产和能源生产。这个CAREER项目将探索利用水平基因转移（HGT）开发和验证用于废水资源回收的工程微生物组。该CAREER项目的两个关键目标是：1）开发和展示用于工程废水微生物组的新型HGT系统，以提高有机废物的资源回收; 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础知识来促进环境微生物组工程，以开发更有效和可持续的废水处理和资源回收工艺，从而造福社会。通过教育和培训，包括指导一名研究生和一名本科生，以及莱斯大学的高中STEM教师培训生，将为社会带来更多好处。水平基因转移（HGT），即DNA在生物体之间的移动，是微生物群落功能和进化的核心。如果利用得当，HGT可用于设计微生物组，以进行环境生物修复、微生物病原体的选择性灭活或从废水中回收有价值的化学物质。然而，关键的知识差距仍然存在，阻碍了通过HGT成功和可重复地改造环境微生物组，包括如何最好地提供功能基因，如何代谢工程不可培养的微生物，以及如何确定促进HGT后基因稳定性和功能的环境条件。这个职业生涯项目的总体目标是开发和验证利用HGT进行环境微生物组工程的新型安全策略。本研究的具体目标是：（1）开发基于供体和质粒的系统，用于将功能基因传递到环境微生物群落中;（2）表征控制HGT速率、宿主范围和通过HGT传递的功能基因在微生物群落中的稳定性的环境和生态因素;以及（3）展示了通过HGT对废水微生物组的原位编辑，以提高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，首席研究员希望开发和验证新的工具和策略，以推进工程微生物组的设计和控制，以实现可持续的环境修复，废水处理和资源回收。拟议的研究活动将与一项教育计划相结合，该计划的重点是增加对合成生物学和微生物组工程中伦理问题的了解，并修改环境工程/科学课程的伦理课程。该职业项目的教育和推广目标将通过以下方式实现：（1）休斯顿高中STEM教师的教师研究经验（RET）;（2）共同开发高中和本科生物伦理课程模块;以及（3）通过休斯顿讲习班传播教师培训模块-该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。