Intercellular Signaling in Vibrio Harveyi

智力价值：PI研究的总体目标是了解群体感应，即细菌中细胞与细胞之间的沟通过程。群体感应包括产生、释放和随后检测称为自体诱导物的化学信号分子。这一过程使细菌种群能够调节基因表达，从而调节种群范围内的行为。产生和同时检测多个自动诱导剂并将这些信息转化为精确控制基因表达的能力是在哈维氏弧菌中首次发现并得到最好研究的，它使用三种不同的自诱导子进行种内、属内和种间细胞间通信。因此，哈维氏弧菌的群体感应回路非常适合探索有关感觉信息是如何在分子水平上整合的问题，以及受多个线索控制的调节蛋白如何提供对这些输入的不同反应的机制。为了充分理解多种信号是如何整合来控制基因表达的，有必要知道并表征所有的输入，这些输入是如何传递到细胞中的，感觉信息是如何整合的，最后，需要详细了解目标输出是什么，以及它们精确控制的分子机制。根据该奖项将开展的研究重点是哈维氏弧菌，目的是探索来自种内、属内和种间信号的信息如何被整合、处理和传递，以控制整个社区的行为。重要的是，过去十年的情况表明，细胞间的交流是细菌世界的常态，因此了解这一过程对所有微生物学，包括农业、工业和临床微生物学，以及最终理解高等生物体的发育都是基本的。更广泛的影响：巴斯勒博士参与了许多与教学和服务相关的活动。在普林斯顿，她为非专业学生讲授本科课程和实验室课程(MOL101：从DNA到人类复杂性)，她还教授研究生课程MOL545：高级微生物遗传学。她是分子生物学研究生研究主任、研究生委员会主席、生物学伞开发项目主席，以及分子生物学科学指导、课程开发和教师招聘委员会主席。她是大学多样性委员会的成员，负责招聘理科女性教员和所有学科的少数族裔教员。她是普林斯顿寄宿学院的本科生导师。她开发并监督了一个高中外展项目，在新泽西州的公共图书馆向儿童和青少年教授科学。她是为纽约博物馆开发科学展品的科学博物馆顾问委员会成员。她是《分子微生物学》和《遗传学年报》的编辑，也是《细菌学杂志》的编辑。她在NSF、Keck、Damon Runyon、Burroughs Wellcome、ASM和AAM赠款、奖学金、会议和奖项审查小组任职。最后，也是最重要的一点，她积极参与实验室的指导工作。现有研究生5名，博士后4名，本科生2名，技术员2名。12年来，她共指导了6名博士后、13名研究生和19名本科生。这一奖项每年将资助她实验室的两名研究生。

Intellectual Merit: The overall goal of the PI's research is to understand quorum sensing, i.e., the process of cell-cell communication in bacteria. Quorum sensing involves the production, release, and subsequent detection of chemical signal molecules called autoinducers. This process enables populations of bacteria to regulate gene expression, and therefore behavior on a population-wide scale. The ability to produce and simultaneously detect multiple autoinducers and to transduce that information into the precise control of gene expression was first discovered, and is best studied, in Vibrio harveyi which uses three distinct autoinducers for intra-species, intra-genera, and inter-species cell-cell communication. Thus, the V. harveyi quorum-sensing circuit has revealed itself to be ideally suited for explorations of questions concerning how sensory information is integrated at the molecular level and how regulatory proteins controlled by multiple cues can nonetheless provide a mechanism for differential responses to those inputs. For a full understanding of how multiple signals are integrated to control gene expression, it is necessary to know and characterize all of the inputs, how these inputs are relayed into the cell, how sensory information is integrated, and, finally, a detailed knowledge of what the target outputs are and the molecular mechanisms underlying their precise control is required. The research to be carried out under this award focuses on V. harveyi, with the aim of exploring how information from the intra-species, intra-genera and inter-species signals is integrated, processed, and transduced to control community-wide behavior. Importantly, the past decade has shown that cell-cell communication is the norm in the bacterial world and thus understanding this process is fundamental to all of microbiology, including agricultural, industrial and clinical microbiology, and ultimately to understanding the development of higher organisms. Broader Impacts: Dr. Bassler participates in many teaching and service related activities. At Princeton, she teaches an undergraduate lecture and laboratory class for non-majors (MOL101: From DNA to Human Complexity) and she teaches the graduate course MOL545: Advanced Microbial Genetics. She is the Director of Graduate Studies for Molecular Biology, the Chair of the Graduate Committee, the Chair of the Biology Umbrella Development Program, and the Chair of the Committee for Scientific Direction, Curriculum Development, and Faculty Recruitment for Molecular Biology. She is on the University Diversity Committee responsible for recruiting women faculty in science and minority faculty in all disciplines. She is an undergraduate advisor at one of the Princeton residential colleges. She developed and supervises a high school outreach program for teaching science to children and teens in NJ public libraries. She is on the advisory board of Science Museum, which develops science exhibits for NY museums. She is an editor for Molecular Microbiology and Annual Reviews of Genetics, and on the editorial board of Journal of Bacteriology. She serves on NSF, Keck, Damon Runyon, Burroughs Wellcome, ASM, and AAM grant, fellowship, meeting, and award review panels. Finally and most importantly, she is actively involved in mentoring in her laboratory. She currently has 5 graduate students, 4 postdocs, 2 undergraduates, and 2 technicians. Over the past 12 years she has mentored a total of 6 postdocs, 13 graduate students, and 19 undergraduates. This award will support two graduate students per year in her laboratory.