Exploring the ecology of airborne pollen biodiversity using environmental DNA analysis and identifying links to hay fever

利用环境 DNA 分析探索空气花粉生物多样性的生态并确定与花粉热的联系

• 批准号: 1938535
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 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=studentship-1938535
• 关键词: Exploring; ecology; airborne; pollen; biodiversity

Almost a quarter of the UK population are sensitised to wind-blown pollen released by either grasses or trees. The resulting allergic reactions cause substantial socio-economic costs via lack of productivity and burden on general practitioners. Although tree pollens can be discriminated by microscopy, the process is slow and resource intensive.Moreover, due to conserved morphology we have no easy way of identifying species of grass pollen. Accordingly, patients and health practitioners do not know what species cause symptoms. Recent developments by the CASE partner NBGW in the generation of a UK plant DNA "barcode" library and high-throughput DNA sequencing (Kraaijeveld et al. Mol. Ecol. Res. 2015) have provided a timely opportunity to identify the species, or combinations of species of grass that are associated with the allergic response. Identification of species known to cause allergies will allow prediction of high risk periods for allergy sufferers, enabling preventive measures to be taken to reduce exposure and use of medication to reduce burden of disease. The PI and co-applicants with the UK Met Office have recently secured a £1.2M NERC Grant to enhance the way that grass pollen is measured via molecular genetic analysis and identify linkages to asthma. Nevertheless, the grant, started in Spring 2016 will not look at tree pollens and/or hay fever symptoms. In this complementary, yet distinct studentship, we will: (a.) to accelerate the discrimination of tree pollens, assess the efficacy of combinations of qPCR, Illumina metabarcoding and shotgun sequencing to quantify species-specific pollen deposition of the eight major allergenic UK trees. (b.) use aerobiological modelling to compare the spatial and temporal deposition of different species of both tree and grass pollens in relation to tree and pollen morphology and atmospheric variables. (c.) identify linkages between species-specific grass pollen deposition and the incidence of UK hay fever.

近四分之一的英国人口对草或树释放的风吹花粉敏感。由此产生的过敏反应通过缺乏生产力和全科医生的负担而造成巨大的社会经济成本。虽然树木花粉可以通过显微镜进行鉴别，但鉴别过程缓慢，而且需要大量的资源。此外，由于花粉形态的保守性，我们没有简单的方法来鉴别禾本科植物花粉的种类。因此，患者和保健医生不知道是什么物种引起的症状。CASE合作伙伴NBGW在产生英国植物DNA“条形码”文库和高通量DNA测序方面的最新进展（Kraaijeveld等人，Mol. 2015）提供了及时的机会来鉴定与过敏反应相关的草的种类或种类的组合。识别已知引起过敏的物种将有助于预测过敏患者的高风险期，从而能够采取预防措施，减少接触和使用药物，以减轻疾病负担。PI和英国气象局的共同申请人最近获得了120万英镑的NERC赠款，以加强通过分子遗传分析测量草花粉的方式，并确定与哮喘的联系。然而，2016年春季开始的赠款将不会考虑树木花粉和/或花粉热症状。在这个互补的，但不同的学生，我们将：（a）。为了加速树花粉的辨别，评估qPCR、Illumina元条形码和鸟枪测序的组合的功效，以量化八种主要致敏性英国树的物种特异性花粉沉积。（B.）利用空气生物学模型，比较树木和草花粉不同种类的空间和时间沉积与树木和花粉形态及大气变量的关系。（c.）确定物种特异性草花粉沉积和英国花粉热的发病率之间的联系。