BE/GEN-EN: A Genomic Approach to Physiological Tolerance, Adaptation and Dispersal

BE/GEN-EN：生理耐受、适应和分散的基因组方法世界海洋正在经历明显的环境变化，并且随着气候的变化，预计这种变化将继续下去。如果生物体要在这些挑战中生存下来，它们必须改变对环境因素的生理耐受性，或者分散到现有耐受性范围内的地方。目前，我们对耐受、适应或扩散的遗传基础的认识是贫乏的、分散的和特殊的。然而，如果开发了一个适当的系统，基因组技术有能力快速和几乎详尽地描述对实验环境挑战的反应所涉及的所有基因。目前，只有少数生物的基因组技术可以被认为是成熟的，而且这些生物都不是实验上可处理的海洋生物。该奖项有两个目的，一是产生必要的生物资源，以建立粘附毛盘虫作为海洋环境基因组学的模型系统，二是进行旨在证明该系统在识别环境响应基因方面的效用的实验。首先，这笔奖金将支持维持一个标准的毛虫实验室系，建立一个标准化的全长cDNA文库，并从该文库中对大约8000个克隆进行末端测序。这些克隆将允许生产由多达5000个独特基因组成的第一代基因表达微阵列。中期目标是在实验中使用微阵列来识别当环境条件恶化到诱使动物分散的程度时作出反应的基因。将评估三种不同形式的环境恶化：暴露于最高盐度、最高温度和临界人口密度。上调基因、下调基因和表达保持不变的基因将在拉丁方统计设计中确定。特别令人感兴趣的将是那些在所有处理中以平行方式改变表达的基因，因为这些基因将是那些转导环境信号以引起扩散的基因。虽然这些具体的研究本身就很有趣，但它们有望作为海洋环境基因组学可行性的概念证明，产生最广泛的影响。从这个概念的验证出发，长期目标将是开发一个可处理的模型系统，任何感兴趣的科学家都可以用它来研究海洋环境中的外部刺激是如何被转导和整合以影响基因表达的变化的。

BE/GEN-EN: A Genomic Approach to Physiological Tolerance, Adaptation and DispersalLeo W. BussYale UniversityThe world's oceans are undergoing pronounced environmental changes and, with climate alteration, are expected to continue to do so. If organisms are to survive these challenges they must alter their physiological tolerances to environmental factors or disperse to locations within their existing tolerances. At present, our knowledge of the genetic foundations of tolerance, adaptation or dispersal is scant, scattered, and idiosyncratic. However, if an appropriate system is developed, genomic technologies have the capacity to rapidly and near-exhaustively characterize all genes involved in the response to an experimental environmental challenge. At present, genomic technologies can be considered mature for only a handful of organisms and none of these are experimentally tractable marine organisms. This award has the dual objectives of generating biological resources necessary to establish Trichoplax adhaerens as a model system for marine environmental genomics, and to perform experiments intended to demonstrate the utility of this system in identifying environmentally responsive genes. In the first instance, the award will support the maintenance of a standard laboratory line of Trichoplax, the production of a normalized full-length cDNA library, and the end-sequencing of some 8,000 clones from this library. These clones will permit the production of a first generation gene expression microarray comprised of up to 5,000 unique genes. The intermediate range goal is to use microarrays in experiments to identify those genes which respond when the environmental conditions deteriorate to a point at which the animals are induced to disperse. Three distinct forms of environmental deterioration will be assessed: exposure to salinity maxima, to thermal maxima, and to critical population densities. Genes which are up-regulated, down-regulated, and those for which expression remains unaltered will be identified in Latin Square statistical design. Of particular interest will be genes whose expression is altered in a parallel fashion in all treatments, as numbered amongst these genes will be those which transduce environmental signals to elicit dispersal. While intriguing in their own right, these specific studies are expected to have the broadest impact as a proof-of-concept for the viability of marine environmental genomics. From this proof-of concept, the long-range goal will be to develop a tractable model system with which any interested scientist can study how external stimuli in the marine environment are transduced and integrated to ect changes in gene expression.