How is the gut microbiome community assembled in wild rodents?

野生啮齿类动物的肠道微生物群落是如何组装的？

• 批准号: 2274916
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2274916
• 关键词: How; gut; microbiome; community; assembled

The bacterial gut microbiome has a profound impact on the biology of its host. But, how this microbiome is assembled and maintained, and the dynamics of changes in its composition, is unknown. Many factors may affect the microbiome's assembly - an animal's diet, its immune responses, and the bacteria an individual is exposed to its environment, which includes bacteria from other individuals with whom it interacts. But, the relative roles of these different factors is unknown.The aim of this project is to investigate the relative importance of diet, immune responses, and bacterial exposure in assembling and maintaining the bacterial gut microbiome in wild rodents. The work will use a combination of field observation studies and controlled experiments where various factors pertaining to microbiome assembly will be manipulatedThe gut microbiome is of enormous importance and research effort but, to date, this has almost exclusively been studied in laboratory rodents. Laboratory rodents have less diverse microbiomes than wild animals. Also, laboratory animals' microbiomes are artefactual - for example, which company has supplied the animals, and in which laboratories they are kept, are dominant factors affecting their microbiome's composition. The novelty of this proposed project is that (i) we will study the composition, assembly and dynamics of the microbiome of wild rodents and (ii) consider the relative role of different factors in controlling its assembly. This multifactorial approach has not been used before, which contributes to the project's novelty.This work is timely because by studying wild systems it will contribute to validating (or not) microbiome research in laboratory animals, for which there is a pressing need. The work is also timely, building on Viney and Pocock's recent work on the immune function and microbiome of wild mice, which is further complemented by Hurst's expertise in wild rodent systems.

细菌肠道微生物群对其宿主的生物学有深远的影响。但是，这个微生物群是如何组装和维护的，以及它的组成变化的动态，还是个未知数。许多因素可能会影响微生物群的组装--动物的饮食、免疫反应以及一个人暴露在环境中的细菌，其中包括与其相互作用的其他人的细菌。但是，这些不同因素的相对作用尚不清楚。该项目的目的是调查饮食、免疫反应和细菌暴露在野生啮齿动物肠道微生物群组装和维护中的相对重要性。这项工作将使用现场观察研究和对照实验相结合的方式，在这些实验中，将操纵与微生物组组装有关的各种因素。肠道微生物组具有巨大的重要性和研究努力，但到目前为止，这几乎只在实验室啮齿动物身上进行研究。与野生动物相比，实验室啮齿动物的微生物群种类较少。此外，实验动物的微生物群是人为的--例如，哪家公司提供了动物，它们被饲养在哪个实验室，是影响它们微生物群组成的主要因素。这个项目的创新之处在于：(I)我们将研究野生啮齿动物微生物群的组成、组装和动态，以及(Ii)考虑不同因素在控制其组装方面的相对作用。这种多因素方法以前从未被使用过，这有助于该项目的新颖性。这项工作是及时的，因为通过研究野生系统，它将有助于验证(或不验证)实验室动物的微生物组研究，这是迫切需要的。这项工作也是及时的，以Viney和Pocock最近在野生老鼠的免疫功能和微生物群方面的工作为基础，而赫斯特在野生啮齿动物系统方面的专业知识进一步补充了这一工作。