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.

微生物是最普遍、最古老和最具弹性的生命形式，表现出几种独特的代谢能力和对极端环境的显著适应。这些特性导致微生物在各种工业过程中得到使用，从生物燃料生产和废水处理到石油泄漏和药物生产的生物修复。尽管微生物无处不在，也很重要，但到目前为止，只有一小部分微生物被描述和分类，导致它们的工业潜力没有得到充分利用，我们对生命的理解也存在重大差距。该项目旨在通过探索美国大盆地温泉中以前未被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不了解的环境之一。我们以大盆地温泉为目标的理由有四个。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可能性。其次，温泉很可能类似于地球上最早的一些孕育生命的环境，因此可以深入了解生命的起源。第三，已知温泉中发现的原核生物具有很强的地方性，因此从微生物的角度来看，温泉可以被认为是“孤岛”，每个岛屿都具有独特的多样性。这种“岛屿”性质预计将在大部分干旱的沙漠般的大盆地中尤为明显。第四，大盆地有丰富的地热特征，但对这些特征的研究仍然很少。我们的数据将向公众开放，从而成为社会的宝贵资源。从大量研究不足的分类类群中发现新物种将有助于未来培养新的微生物及其基于预测的营养需求的生理特性。增加微生物生命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微生物学暑期课程，为学生提供实地工作、实验室工作和生物信息学方面的实践培训。该项目旨在利用与培养无关的基因组解析宏基因组学，在美国大盆地的40个温泉中以全基因组分辨率恢复新的微生物（细菌和古细菌）多样性。温泉的选择使发现新的微生物多样性的潜力最大化。通过与参考数据库的比较，对恢复的基因组进行分类和功能注释。此外，每个样品的材料将通过冷冻保存和冻干存档，以方便对恢复的微生物多样性进行后续调查。该项目预计将导致发现1000-1500个新的原核生物物种，其中许多来自新的纲甚至门。该项目还将收集丰富的地球化学元数据，如离子浓度、pH值和温度，为恢复的基因组提供环境背景。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。