Coordinating nutrition and energy allocation: mechanisms and evolution

项目摘要 所有生物都有一个共同的需求，即从环境中获取资源， 维持解剖结构和生物功能。生物如何分配有限的资源 对生殖，体细胞的维护和储存，是一个巨大的表型阵列的关键， 人体健康从能量分配的角度来看，肥胖和代谢综合征是由 存储资源的过度分配是不适应的，老化是减少 分配到躯体维持，和“运动性”闭经涉及一个分配的转变， 生殖该建议描述了一个实验的进化方法，使用良好的表征模型 系统，果蝇，了解遗传基础和进化之间的协调 分配和资源可用性。一个完全遗传特征的人群将暴露在三个 环境，其中的每一个被预测为选择不同的资源分配模式。拟议 实验将确定基因组，生理和高水平的表型变化，发生在 一个对现代许多最关键的健康问题具有根本重要性的特征的演变 人类群体（例如，肥胖、代谢综合征和年龄相关疾病）。的主要目标 研究包括1）直接观察资源分配模式如何对生殖，维持 （生存）和储存在适应过程中演变为不同的资源可用性制度，2） 跟踪基因组水平的变化，以确定影响资源可用性协调的基因 资源分配，3）表征跨基因型-表型图谱的中间表型变化， 以及4）记录在基因型-表型图谱的不同水平上的平行进化程度。

Project Summary All organisms share the common requirement of acquiring resources from the environment to build and maintain anatomical structures and to fuel biological functions. How organisms allocate their limited resources towards reproduction, somatic maintenance, and storage, underlies a vast array of phenotypes critical to human health. Viewed within an energy allocation context, obesity and metabolic syndrome result from a maladaptive over-allocation of resources to storage, aging is a necessary consequence of decreased allocation to somatic maintenance, and “athletic” amenorrhea involves an allocational shift away from reproduction. This proposal describes an experimental evolution approach using the well-characterized model system, Drosophila melanogaster, to understand the genetic basis and evolution of the coordination between allocation and resource availability. A fully genetically characterized population will be exposed to three environments, each of which is predicted to select for a different resource allocation pattern. The proposed experiments will determine the genomic, physiological, and high-level phenotypic changes that occur during the evolution of a trait of fundamental importance to many of the most critical health concerns for modern human populations (e.g., obesity, metabolic syndrome, and age-related diseases). The major objectives of the research include 1) directly observing how resource allocation patterns towards reproduction, maintenance (survival), and storage evolve during the course of adaptation different resource availability regimes, 2) tracking genomic level changes to identify genes affecting the coordination of resource availability with resource allocation, 3) characterizing intermediate phenotypic changes across the genotype to phenotype map, and 4) documenting the degree of parallel evolution at different levels of the genotype to phenotype map.