Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms for Defense Against Xenobiotics in Marine Embryos

埃佩尔博士正在寻求探索性研究小额赠款的支持，以帮助他的实验室进入一个新的研究方向——水生生物胚胎抵抗自然和人为外来生物有害影响的细胞机制。他将把重点放在胚胎上，因为这是生物体生命史上一个特别敏感的阶段。这项新工作结合了他在细胞和发育生物学方面的长期工作和兴趣，以及对人为引入化学物质对海洋环境的影响的新兴趣和关注。除了提供关于胚胎防御机制的新见解外，这项工作还将对生物体生活史中胚胎和成年阶段细胞的正常功能产生新的和意想不到的见解。它将测试多重耐药或p糖蛋白转运系统的可能性，其作用主要被认为是在将疏水药物运送出细胞方面具有医学重要性，通常（即在历史或进化意义上）用于清除或解毒外源/污染物。如果这个想法是正确的，它将为生物体，特别是水生生物，如何抵抗人造和天然有毒化合物的影响提供一个新的视角。这项工作还可以提供“自然史”或进化基础，解释为什么这些蛋白质存在，以及它们在生物体正常生活史中的作用。

Dr. Epel is seeking support under the Small Grants for Exploratory Research for assistance in moving his lab into a new research direction - the cellular mechanisms by which embryos of aquatic organisms resist deleterious effects of xenobiotics, both natural and anthropogenic. He will focus on embryos since this is a particularly sensitive phase of the organism's life history. This new work combines his long term work and interest in cell and developmental biology with a new interest and concern about the effects of man-introduced chemicals into the marine environment. Besides providing new insights about embryonic defense mechanisms, this work will also yield new and unexpected insights on the normal functioning of cells in both the embryonic and adult phases of the organisms's life history. It will test the possibility that the multi-drug resistance or P-glycoproteins transport system, whose role has been primarily assumed to be of medical importance in terms of transporting hydrophobic drugs out of cells, is normally (i.e., in the historical or evolutionary sense) utilized for removal or detoxification of xenobiotics/pollutants. This idea, if correct, would provide a novel insight into how organisms, and in particular aquatic organisms, can resist the effects of man-made and natural noxious compounds. This work could also provide a "natural history" or evolutionary basis for why these proteins are present and their role in the normal life history of the organism.