A platform for environmental phenomics

环境表型组学平台

• 批准号: NE/R002142/1
• 负责人: Simon Rundle
• 金额: $ 2.05万
• 依托单位: Plymouth University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FR002142%2F1
• 关键词: platform; environmental; phenomics

The planet is undergoing an unprecedented environmental alterations and there is an urgent need to understand how species will respond to altered conditions associated with climate change (global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification) and pollutants. Development of new technologies has recently seen a revolution in Biology with the advent of tools that enable us to quantify, in extremely fine detail, how organisms respond to environmental change at the level of molecules and genes. Such environmental -omics approaches to measuring how an organism responds to changes in their environment have become a major theme in Biology, particularly for molecular level -omics. These approaches rely on technologies to automate the generation of large quantities of data in a high-throughput manner.A major objective in our laboratory is to gain a better understanding of how environmental stressors affect the physiology (i.e. the function) and morphology (i.e. the form) of early life stages in aquatic invertebrates. These observable characteristics, the phenome, provide important information on responses at the level of the whole-organism. We have developed a unique bioimaging technology for quantifying the phenome in aquatic embryos. This platform, produces high-resolution (temporal and spatial) time lapse video of large numbers of developing embryos, exposed to tightly controlled environmental conditions. This video is used to quantify aspects of embryonic growth, morphology and physiology. Initially this data extraction was primarily via manual observation, which creates a bottleneck in the application of this technology. Consequently, we have recently developed analytical software that works complimentary to the bioimaging technology and which automates the quantification of the phenome in large numbers of embryos. The analytical software enables the quantification of the phenome from hundreds of millions of images with a resolution and scale that is not possible via manual analysis and consequently it significantly increases the power and high throughput nature of this technology.This pathfinder award would facilitatate market research to determine whether our platform for measuring phenomic responses of aquatic invertebrate embryos has the potential to be extended for use as a general tool in environmental phenomics research, including applications in ecotoxicology and other environmental impact studies. Potential users such as NGOs, water authorities, environmental consultancies and companies in the chemical, pharmaceutical, dyestuffs, plastics and laboratory equipment sectors will be identified and canvassed; and phenomics activities at institutions in UK and elsewhere will be identified. The aim is to use this research to direct and drive a NERC follow-on fund proposal to carry our research targeting phenomic measurements that are of relevance to potential markets.

地球正在经历前所未有的环境变化，迫切需要了解物种将如何应对与气候变化（全球变暖，海平面上升，海洋酸化）和污染物相关的变化条件。新技术的发展最近在生物学中发生了一场革命，工具的出现使我们能够非常详细地量化生物体如何在分子和基因水平上对环境变化做出反应。这种测量生物体如何响应其环境变化的环境组学方法已成为生物学的主要主题，特别是对于分子水平的组学。这些方法依赖于高通量自动生成大量数据的技术。我们实验室的一个主要目标是更好地了解环境压力如何影响水生无脊椎动物早期生命阶段的生理（即功能）和形态（即形式）。这些可观察到的特征，即表型组，提供了关于整个生物体水平的反应的重要信息。我们开发了一种独特的生物成像技术，用于量化水生胚胎中的表型。这个平台可以产生大量发育中的胚胎的高分辨率（时间和空间）延时视频，这些胚胎暴露在严格控制的环境条件下。该视频用于量化胚胎生长、形态学和生理学方面。最初，这种数据提取主要是通过人工观察，这在该技术的应用中造成了瓶颈。因此，我们最近开发了一种分析软件，该软件与生物成像技术互补，可以自动量化大量胚胎中的表型组。该分析软件能够以人工分析无法实现的分辨率和规模从数亿张图像中量化表型组，因此它显著提高了该技术的能力和高通量性质。该开拓者奖将促进市场研究，以确定我们测量水生无脊椎动物胚胎表型组反应的平台是否有潜力扩展用于环境表型学研究的通用工具，包括生态毒理学和其他环境影响研究中的应用。潜在的用户，如非政府组织，水务局，环境咨询公司和公司在化学，制药，染料，塑料和实验室设备部门将被确定和游说;和表型组学活动在英国和其他地方的机构将被确定。我们的目标是利用这项研究来指导和推动NERC后续基金提案，以开展我们针对与潜在市场相关的表型测量的研究。