Distinguishing pollutant-induced stresses from spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity - a metabolomic approach to stress ecology

区分污染物引起的应激与时空环境异质性——应激生态学的代谢组学方法

• 批准号: NE/H009973/1
• 负责人: Jacob Bundy
• 金额: $ 57.01万
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2010 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FH009973%2F1
• 关键词: Distinguishing; pollutant; induced; stresses; spatial

If proteins form the machinery of a cell, then small molecule metabolites are the cell's currency, forming the flows of information (signalling), energy and nutrients that regulate many of the most important biological functions. The accounting of these metabolites - by listing in an unbiased fashion all the metabolites present in a biological sample - is called metabolomics. Because of the central nature of metabolism in the control of physiology, the metabolites that are present in cells and organisms are very sensitive to environmental variation (e.g. differences in soil chemistry, climate, etc.). In recent years, the development of analytical methods to identify a large sub-set of the metabolites present in cells has held promise that such analyses could be used to establish which environmental influences were affecting an organism's health. This is important because human activity now means that in much of the developed, and increasingly the developing, world, the condition of the environment has been changed meaning that species are living within ecosystems that are no longer 'pristine'. One example of the effects of man on the environment is the presence in much of the developed and, increasingly, developing world, of a 'grey veil' of contamination resulting from domestic and industrial pollution. To date the metabolomics approach has been used mostly in laboratory-based studies to identify the responses of a range of species to environmental stresses. These stresses include pollution, as well as 'natural' factors like temperature extremes and disease. While these results have been extremely promising, a potential criticism is that it may not be as successful in the real world as it is in the lab. This is primarily because in the natural environment there are large variations in environmental factors (e.g. climate, soil/ water chemistry, interactions with other organisms), which will all also affect metabolite levels. This may make it difficult, if not impossible, to separate the effects of the factor being studied (e.g. environmental pollution) from the 'metabolic noise' created by the effects of all the other varying environmental factors. In this project we are aiming to specifically to test how reliable metabolomics can be to study the effects of soil pollution on natural populations. We will study a common British earthworm species: earthworms are good 'sentinel' species for soil contamination, as they .are both sensitive to pollution, and play an important ecological role in most soils. Initially, we will sample worms at several different times throughout the year from a wide range of clean sites across the country. This will tell us about the variety of metabolic responses that can be found in worms living under comparatively unpolluted conditions. Next we will conduct a series of laboratory experiments to understand the effects of a range of environmental factors (e.g. different soil acidity, moisture levels, soil type, temperature) on worm metabolic physiology. This will help us interpret the variations we see in our field-collected individuals: what kind of natural stresses were they under? Finally we will measure metabolites in worms collected from a set of known polluted sites (contaminated with toxic heavy metals and/or organic chemicals) at different times through the year. This will allow us to answer the fundamental question, can we reliably distinguish worms from clean and polluted sites, even though the sites themselves and the climatic condition at the time of collections are highly varied? On completion, our study will provide an extensive and high-quality dataset that could be used as a baseline for future research. Further, the results we will obtain will be of considerable academic interest to both physiologist and environmental scientists. Finally our results may, in the long run, lead to the development of methods to monitor and assess the changing state of our environment.

如果蛋白质形成细胞的机器，那么小分子代谢物就是细胞的货币，形成信息（信号）、能量和营养物质的流动，调节许多最重要的生物功能。对这些代谢物的统计——通过以公正的方式列出生物样本中存在的所有代谢物——被称为代谢组学。由于代谢在生理学控制中的核心性质，细胞和生物体中存在的代谢物对环境变化（例如土壤化学、气候等的差异）非常敏感。近年来，用于识别细胞中存在的大量代谢物的分析方法的发展有望使此类分析可用于确定哪些环境影响正在影响生物体的健康。这一点很重要，因为人类活动现在意味着在许多发达国家以及越来越多的发展中国家，环境条件已经发生变化，这意味着物种生活在不再“原始”的生态系统中。人类对环境影响的一个例子是，在许多发达国家以及越来越多的发展中国家，都存在着一层由家庭和工业污染造成的污染“灰色面纱”。迄今为止，代谢组学方法主要用于基于实验室的研究，以确定一系列物种对环境压力的反应。这些压力包括污染以及极端温度和疾病等“自然”因素。虽然这些结果非常有希望，但一个潜在的批评是，它在现实世界中可能不如在实验室中那么成功。这主要是因为在自然环境中，环境因素（例如气候、土壤/水化学、与其他生物的相互作用）存在很大变化，这些也会影响代谢水平。这可能使得很难（如果不是不可能的话）将正在研究的因素（例如环境污染）的影响与所有其他不同环境因素的影响所产生的“代谢噪音”分开。在这个项目中，我们的目标是专门测试代谢组学在研究土壤污染对自然种群影响方面的可靠性。我们将研究一种常见的英国蚯蚓物种：蚯蚓是土壤污染的良好“哨兵”物种，因为它们对污染很敏感，并且在大多数土壤中发挥着重要的生态作用。最初，我们将在一年中的几个不同时间从全国各地的干净地点采集蠕虫样本。这将告诉我们生活在相对未受污染的条件下的蠕虫中可以发现的各种代谢反应。接下来我们将进行一系列的实验室实验，以了解一系列环境因素（例如不同的土壤酸度、湿度、土壤类型、温度）对蠕虫代谢生理的影响。这将帮助我们解释我们在现场收集的个体中看到的差异：他们承受着什么样的自然压力？最后，我们将在一年中的不同时间测量从一组已知污染地点（受有毒重金属和/或有机化学物质污染）收集的蠕虫的代谢物。这将使我们能够回答一个基本问题：即使地点本身和收集时的气候条件差异很大，我们能否可靠地将蠕虫与干净和污染的地点区分开来？完成后，我们的研究将提供广泛且高质量的数据集，可用作未来研究的基线。此外，我们将获得的结果将引起生理学家和环境科学家的极大学术兴趣。最后，从长远来看，我们的结果可能会导致监测和评估环境变化状态的方法的开发。

项目成果

Earthworms produce phytochelatins in response to arsenic.

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081271
• 发表时间: 2013
• 期刊: PloS one
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Liebeke M;Garcia-Perez I;Anderson CJ;Lawlor AJ;Bennett MH;Morris CA;Kille P;Svendsen C;Spurgeon DJ;Bundy JG
• 通讯作者: Bundy JG

Identifying biochemical phenotypic differences between cryptic species.

识别隐秘物种之间的生化表型差异。

• DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0615
• 发表时间: 2014
• 期刊: Biology letters
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Liebeke M

DNA sequence variation and methylation in an arsenic tolerant earthworm population

• DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2012.10.014
• 发表时间: 2013-02-01
• 期刊: SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
• 影响因子: 9.7
• 作者: Kille, Peter;Andre, Jane;Spurgeon, David J.
• 通讯作者: Spurgeon, David J.

Unique metabolites protect earthworms against plant polyphenols.

• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8869
• 发表时间: 2015-08-04
• 期刊: Nature communications
• 影响因子: 16.6
• 作者: Liebeke M;Strittmatter N;Fearn S;Morgan AJ;Kille P;Fuchser J;Wallis D;Palchykov V;Robertson J;Lahive E;Spurgeon DJ;McPhail D;Takáts Z;Bundy JG
• 通讯作者: Bundy JG

Tissue disruption and extraction methods for metabolic profiling of an invertebrate sentinel species

• DOI: 10.1007/s11306-011-0377-1
• 发表时间: 2012-10-01
• 期刊: METABOLOMICS
• 影响因子: 3.6
• 作者: Liebeke, Manuel;Bundy, Jacob G.
• 通讯作者: Bundy, Jacob G.