PurSUiT: Uncovering bacterial and archaeal diversity in Great Basin hot springs

追求：揭示大盆地温泉中细菌和古菌的多样性

• 批准号: 2241193
• 负责人: Stilianos Louca
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-06-15 至 2025-11-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2241193&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PurSUiT; Uncovering; bacterial; archaeal; diversity

Microbes are the most ubiquitous, most ancient and most resilient form of life, exhibiting several unique metabolic capabilities and remarkable adaptations to extreme environments. These properties have led to the use of microbes in a variety of industrial processes, ranging from biofuel production and wastewater treatment to bioremediation of oil spills and drug production. Despite their ubiquity and importance, only a minuscule fraction of microbes has been characterized and taxonomically classified so far, resulting in a large underutilization of their industrial potential and a major gap in our understanding of life. This project aims to reduce this gap by exploring previously undiscovered microbial diversity in hot springs across the US Great Basin, which are some of Earth's most extreme and least understood environments. Our rationale for targeting Great Basin hot springs is four-fold. First, hot springs exert strong selective pressures on organisms, thus increasing the potential for discovering novel species. Second, hot springs likely resemble some of the earliest life-harboring environments on Earth, thus yielding insight into the origins of life. Third, prokaryotes found in hot springs are known to exhibit strong degrees of endemism, and hence hot springs can be considered "isolated islands" from a microbial perspective, each with unique diversity. This "island"-nature is expected to be particularly pronounced in the largely arid desert-like Great Basin. Fourth, the Great Basin is rich in geothermal features that nevertheless remain poorly studied. Our data will be made publicly available, thus serving as a valuable resource to society. The discovery of new species from a large number of poorly studied taxonomic groups will assist in the future cultivation of new microorganisms and their physiological characterization, based on predicted nutrient requirements. Increasing the coverage of the microbial tree of life will also facilitate reconstruction of the timing and order of various evolutionary events believed to have shaped our planet's surface chemistry and climate. The project will provide hands-on training to students in field work, lab work and bioinformatics, through participation in the research activities as well as through a microbiology summer course. The project aims to recover novel microbial (bacterial and archaeal) diversity in 40 hot springs across the US Great Basin at whole-genome resolution, using culture-independent genome-resolved metagenomics. The hot springs have been chosen such that the potential for discovery of new microbial diversity is maximized. Recovered genomes will be taxonomically classified and functionally annotated through comparison to reference databases. In addition, material from each sample will be archived via cryopreservation as well as lyophilization, to facilitate follow-up investigations of the recovered microbial diversity. The project is expected to lead to the discovery of 1000-1500 new prokaryotic species, many of which from new classes and even phyla. The project will also collect rich geochemical metadata, such as ion concentrations, pH and temperatures, to provide environmental context for the recovered genomes.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.

微生物是生命中最普遍，最古老，最有弹性的生活形式，具有几种独特的代谢能力和对极端环境的显着改编。这些特性导致在各种工业过程中使用微生物，从生物燃料的生产和废水处理到石油溢油和药物生产的生物修复。尽管它们的无处不在和重要性，但到目前为止，只有很少的微生物部分被描述和分类学分类，从而导致其工业潜力不足，并且对我们对生活的理解有很大的差距。该项目旨在通过探索整个美国伟大盆地温泉中未发现的微生物多样性来缩小这一差距，这是地球上最极端和最了解的环境。我们针对大盆地温泉的理由是四倍。首先，温泉对生物体施加了强大的选择压力，从而增加了发现新物种的潜力。其次，温泉可能类似于地球上一些最早的生命危机环境，从而深入了解了生命的起源。第三，已知在温泉中发现的原核生物表现出强大的特有程度，因此，从微生物的角度来看，温泉可以被视为“孤立的岛屿”，每个岛屿都具有独特的多样性。预计这种“岛” - 在很大程度上像干旱的沙漠一样的大盆地中特别明显。第四，大盆地具有丰富的地热特征，尽管如此，这些特征的研究仍然很差。我们的数据将公开提供，从而成为社会的宝贵资源。根据预测的营养需求，从大量研究的分类学群体中发现新物种将有助于未来种植新的微生物及其生理表征。增加生命的微生物树的覆盖范围也将有助于重建各种进化事件的时间和顺序，这些进化事件被认为塑造了我们星球的表面化学和气候。该项目将通过参与研究活动以及通过微生物学夏季课程，为实地工作，实验室工作和生物信息学的学生提供动手培训。该项目旨在使用独立于培养基因组分辨的元基因组学以全基因组分辨率以全基因组分辨率在美国大流域的40个温泉中恢复新的微生物（细菌和古细菌）多样性。已经选择了温泉，以使发现新微生物多样性的潜力最大化。通过与参考数据库进行比较，恢复的基因组将对分类学分类和功能注释。此外，每个样品的材料将通过冷冻保存和冻干进行存档，以促进对回收微生物多样性的随访研究。预计该项目将导致发现1000-1500种新的原核生物，其中许多物种来自新阶级，甚至是门。该项目还将收集丰富的地球化学元数据，例如离子浓度，pH和温度，以为回收的基因组提供环境环境。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的审查标准通过评估来进行评估的。