NSF PRFB FY 2023: Heritable phenotypes and mechanisms through transgenerational plasticity in response to hypoxia in fish

NSF PRFB 2023 财年：通过跨代可塑性响应鱼类缺氧的遗传表型和机制

• 批准号: 2305837
• 负责人: Benjamin Negrete
• 金额: $ 24万
• 依托单位: Negrete, Benjamin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-04-01 至 2027-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2305837&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; PRFB; FY; 2023; Heritable

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment, and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. This research investigates the physiological implications of long-term hypoxia (low oxygen) in marine environments on fish. Hypoxia is an environmental stressor that is becoming more prevalent around the world and, compounded with warming oceans, is increasing in duration, severity, and size. Chronic exposure to hypoxia is particularly threatening as it limits the ability of fish to generate energy through aerobic metabolism. Additionally, hypoxia has many downstream impacts, including causing fish to make changes to their behavior, morphology, physiology, and gene expression. The sum of these flexible changes can be referred to as plasticity. Marine fish at all life stages, particularly early-life stages, are susceptible to environmental hypoxia as not all species can undergo long migrations to oxygenated waters. The fellow will investigate the plastic response of the marine stickleback to chronic hypoxia and how these plastic traits are transferred to the next generation. Populations of stickleback in the same habitats express distinct phenotypes that differ in their response to environmental stress, suggesting phenotypic traits are inherited in species from the same genotype to benefit offspring. This work will explore the changes to the oxygen cascade from the whole-animal oxygen uptake to metabolic pathways and to genetic control of these mechanisms. The proposed research will explore whole-animal oxygen consumption and critical oxygen thresholds using respirometry. This oxygen uptake, and thus aerobic respiration, will be further investigated in aerobically-demanding tissues, including cardiac and skeletal muscles, by the sum of metabolic pathways down to changes in the use of oxygen at the mitochondria. The fellow will use transcriptomics to look at widespread changes in gene expression that underpins changes in aerobic respiration and the role of epigenetics in controlling the expression of specific traits. Through this work, the fellow will prioritize recruiting and mentoring undergraduates to provide hands-on research experience and mentorship through navigating college and graduate school.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.

该行动为2023财年生物学的NSF博士后研究奖学金提供了资金，该研究综合研究调查了有关基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生活规则。奖学金支持对研究员的研究和培训，这些研究和培训将以创新的方式为生活规则做出贡献。这项研究研究了鱼类环境对鱼类环境中长期缺氧（低氧）的生理意义。缺氧是一种环境压力源，在世界范围内变得越来越普遍，并且随着持续时间，严重程度和大小而增加。长期暴露于缺氧尤其威胁性，因为它限制了鱼通过有氧代谢产生能量的能力。此外，缺氧具有许多下游影响，包括导致鱼类改变其行为，形态，生理和基因表达。这些柔性变化的总和可以称为可塑性。在所有生命阶段，尤其是早期生活阶段，海洋鱼类都容易受到环境缺氧的影响，因为并非所有物种都可以长期迁移到含氧水域。该研究员将研究海洋棘背对慢性缺氧的塑性反应，以及如何将这些塑料特征转移到下一代。在相同栖息地中的粘性种群表达了不同的表型，它们对环境压力的反应有所不同，这表明表型性状是从相同基因型中遗传而来的，从而使后代有益于后代。这项工作将探索从整个动物氧摄取到代谢途径的氧气级联反应的变化，再到这些机制的遗传控制。拟议的研究将使用呼吸测定法探索全动物氧的消耗和关键的氧阈值。这种氧气摄取，因此将通过代谢途径的总和到线粒体上使用的代谢途径的总和，在包括心脏和骨骼肌在内的有氧组织（包括心脏和骨骼肌）中进一步研究。该研究员将使用转录组学来研究基因表达的广泛变化，这些变化是有氧呼吸的变化以及表观遗传学在控制特定性状表达中的作用。通过这项工作，该研究员将优先考虑招聘和指导本科生，通过导航大学和研究生院提供动手研究经验和指导。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影响评估的评估来进行评估的。