Exploiting sociogenomics datasets for understanding phenotypic plasticity

利用社会基因组学数据集来理解表型可塑性

• 批准号: NE/K011316/1
• 负责人: Seirian Sumner
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2013 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FK011316%2F1
• 关键词: Exploiting; sociogenomics; datasets; understanding; phenotypic

Determining how biological diversity is generated from the most basic building blocks of life (i.e. the genes) is fundamental to our understanding and sustainable stewardship of the environment and its biodiversity. It is also fundamental for revealing how biological complexity arises and is maintained during the evolution of life. In a rapidly changing global environment it is not just genetic variation between individuals in a population that will prove essential to their long-term survival; behavioural flexibility is also likely to be crucial to survival, as it permits an organism to respond rapidly to environmental change. Such behavioural plasticity is mediated at the level of the genes; genes respond to environmental cues, changing their expression, resulting in changes in the types and quantities of proteins produced. This affects the behaviour of cells, and ultimately, of the organism as a whole. Our understanding of the fundamental molecular processes which govern interactions between genome and environment is currently limited, especially for wild organisms in ecologically meaningful contexts.Biology is entering the 'omics era, where data on the broad-scale molecular processes underlying phenotype flexibility, adaptation and resilience can be easily produced. Until recently, these datasets were limited to a few lab-based organisms. Advances in molecular technologies means we can now ask these questions of any organism in natural populations. This potential is of immeasurable benefit to the environmental sciences, where organisms need to be studied in meaningful ecological contexts. However, currently, our ability to generate such 'omics data far out-strips our capacity to analyse and interpret it. This proposal requests modest resources to exploit existing genomic datasets on ecologically important organisms, to address long-standing questions in biology and simultaneously develop informatics skills and resources for ecologists. Social insects are a powerful model system for testing ecological and evolutionary questions, and understanding how their cooperative societies function may give insights into our own. Social insects also constitute a vast proportion of the insect pollinators on whom we depend for assuring global food security, but who are currently facing global population declines. Within an insect society, all individuals share the same genome, which is translated into many different physical and / or behavioural forms (namely, queen and worker castes). Which caste an individual becomes depends on its environment (e.g. nutritional, social, ecological). In species with small colonies and simple social organisation (e.g. Polistes paper wasps), individuals show incredible ability to switch between castes in rapid response to changes in their environment. They are therefore excellent organisms for understanding how phenotypic diversity and adaptability are generated at the level of the genes. Yet, these simple insect societies remain relatively understudied from a molecular perspective. We propose to exploit existing datasets to probe the genomic basis of behavioural phenotypes in a range of social insect species. We explore to what extent similar phenotypes are underlain by genes shared across all species ('conserved genes'), or genes that are specific to a particular species ('novel genes'). We will provide a first analysis of the relationship between gene expression and protein production in social insects, allowing us to identify the genes involved in regulating phenotypic change. We will share our learning and results with other researchers and putative stakeholders through a workshop, where the broader value of gene-level research in ecology, conservation and environmental sustainability will be explored. Thus, we hope that this project will nurture innovative and long-term collaborations between computational scientists and ecologist both locally and in the wider scientific community.

确定生物多样性是如何从生命的最基本组成部分（即基因）产生的，对于我们理解和可持续地管理环境及其生物多样性至关重要。它也是揭示生物复杂性如何产生并在生命进化过程中维持的基础。在迅速变化的全球环境中，对一个种群的长期生存至关重要的不仅仅是种群中个体之间的遗传变异;行为灵活性也可能对生存至关重要，因为它使生物体能够对环境变化迅速作出反应。这种行为可塑性是在基因水平上介导的;基因对环境线索作出反应，改变它们的表达，导致产生的蛋白质的类型和数量发生变化。这会影响细胞的行为，最终影响整个生物体的行为。目前，我们对基因组与环境相互作用的基本分子过程的理解还很有限，尤其是对野生生物的生态学意义。生物学正在进入“组学时代”，在这个时代，可以很容易地获得有关表型灵活性、适应性和恢复力的大规模分子过程的数据。直到最近，这些数据集还仅限于少数实验室生物。分子技术的进步意味着我们现在可以对自然种群中的任何生物体提出这些问题。这种潜力对环境科学有着不可估量的好处，因为生物体需要在有意义的生态环境中进行研究。然而，目前，我们产生这样的“组学数据的能力远远超出了我们分析和解释它的能力。这一提议要求适度的资源，以利用现有的基因组数据集对生态重要的生物，解决长期存在的问题，在生物学和同时开发信息学技能和资源的生态学家。社会性昆虫是测试生态和进化问题的强大模型系统，了解它们的合作社会如何运作可能会让我们对自己的社会有更深入的了解。社会性昆虫也构成了昆虫授粉者的很大一部分，我们依靠它们来确保全球粮食安全，但它们目前正面临全球人口下降的问题。在昆虫社会中，所有个体都共享相同的基因组，基因组被翻译成许多不同的身体和/或行为形式（即女王和工人种姓）。一个人成为何种种姓取决于其环境（例如营养、社会、生态）。在具有小殖民地和简单社会组织的物种中（例如Polistes paper wasps），个体表现出令人难以置信的能力，可以快速响应环境的变化而在种姓之间切换。因此，它们是了解表型多样性和适应性如何在基因水平上产生的极好生物。然而，这些简单的昆虫社会仍然相对不足，从分子的角度来看。我们建议利用现有的数据集来探测一系列社会昆虫物种的行为表型的基因组基础。我们探索在何种程度上相似的表型是由所有物种共有的基因（“保守基因”）或特定物种特有的基因（“新基因”）所支撑的。我们将首次分析群居昆虫的基因表达和蛋白质产生之间的关系，从而确定参与调节表型变化的基因。我们将通过研讨会与其他研究人员和假定的利益相关者分享我们的学习和成果，探讨基因水平研究在生态学，保护和环境可持续性方面的更广泛价值。因此，我们希望这个项目将培养本地和更广泛的科学界的计算科学家和生态学家之间的创新和长期合作。

项目成果

Social complexity, life-history and lineage influence the molecular basis of castes in vespid wasps.

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36456-6
• 发表时间: 2023-02-24
• 期刊: NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
• 影响因子: 16.6
• 作者: Wyatt, Christopher Douglas Robert;Bentley, Michael Andrew;Taylor, Daisy;Favreau, Emeline;Brock, Ryan Edward;Taylor, Benjamin Aaron;Bell, Emily;Leadbeater, Ellouise;Sumner, Seirian
• 通讯作者: Sumner, Seirian

Exploiting sociogenomics datasets to understand social behavior.

利用社会基因组学数据集来理解社会行为。

• 发表时间: 2013
• 期刊: iEOS2014 Omics Annual Conference
• 作者: Wyatt, C.

Neurogenomic Signatures of Successes and Failures in Life-History Transitions in a Key Insect Pollinator.

• DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evx220
• 发表时间: 2017-11-01
• 期刊: Genome biology and evolution
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Manfredini F;Romero AE;Pedroso I;Paccanaro A;Sumner S;Brown MJF
• 通讯作者: Brown MJF

Self-organization of plasticity and specialization in a primitively social insect.

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2022.08.002
• 发表时间: 2022-09-21
• 期刊: Cell systems
• 影响因子: 9.3

High indirect fitness benefits for helpers across the nesting cycle in the tropical paper wasp Polistes canadensis.

对于热带纸黄蜂 Polistes canadensis 整个筑巢周期的帮助者来说，间接的健身效益很高。

• DOI: 10.1111/mec.15137
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Molecular ecology
• 影响因子: 4.9
• 作者: Southon RJ