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

该行动资助了美国国家科学基金会2023财年生物学博士后研究奖学金，研究基因组，环境和表型之间相互作用的生命规则的综合研究。该奖学金支持将以创新方式对生活规则领域作出贡献的研究员的研究和培训。本研究探讨了海洋环境中长期低氧对鱼类的生理影响。缺氧是一种环境压力源，在世界范围内变得越来越普遍，与海洋变暖相结合，其持续时间、严重程度和规模都在增加。长期暴露于缺氧是特别危险的，因为它限制了鱼类通过有氧代谢产生能量的能力。此外，缺氧有许多下游影响，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称为塑性。海洋鱼类在所有生命阶段，特别是生命早期阶段，都容易受到环境缺氧的影响，因为不是所有物种都能经历长途迁徙到含氧水域。他将研究海洋棘鱼对慢性缺氧的可塑性反应，以及这些可塑性特征是如何传递给下一代的。在相同栖息地的棘鱼种群表现出不同的表型，对环境压力的反应不同，这表明表型性状在物种中遗传自相同的基因型，从而有利于后代。这项工作将探索从全动物氧摄取到代谢途径的氧级联的变化以及这些机制的遗传控制。拟议的研究将利用呼吸测量法探索全动物耗氧量和临界氧阈值。这种氧气摄取和有氧呼吸，将在有氧需求组织中进一步研究，包括心脏和骨骼肌，通过代谢途径的总和，直到线粒体中氧气使用的变化。他将利用转录组学研究支撑有氧呼吸变化的基因表达的广泛变化，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，该研究员将优先招聘和指导本科生，为他们提供实践研究经验，并在大学和研究生院提供指导。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。

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.