International Research Fellowship Program: Metabolic Responses of Toxic Marine Diatoms to Planktonic Community Variations

国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持艾米丽·K·普林斯博士与德国耶拿弗里德里希-席勒大学的乔治·波纳特博士合作的为期24个月的研究奖学金。组织可能通过增加化合物的生产来与其社区互动，以抵御捕食、吸引配偶、杀死竞争对手、避免病原体、建立共生等。评估这些变化可能很困难，但假设化合物的持续生产提供了生物如何相互作用的不完整图景。伪菱形藻属的海洋硅藻增加了神经毒性化合物软骨藻酸的产生，使这种在生态和经济上具有重要意义的物种成为了解浮游生物如何对其环境做出化学反应的良好模型。与其他有害的藻类水华一样，伪菱形藻的水华与对人类和生态系统健康的有害影响有关。由于这些水华在全球范围内不断增加，并对渔业和沿海旅游业构成日益严重的全球威胁，因此了解调节拟菱形藻新陈代谢和毒素产生的因素至关重要。拟菱形藻属。可能通过调节特定化合物的产生来检测和响应群落的其他成员，从而导致生态相互作用的改变。这个项目有三个主要目标。第一种方法是利用UPLC-ToF MS和GC-ToF MS建立代谢图谱，并用高效液相、GC和核磁共振鉴定特定化合物，从而确定假硝化细菌在竞争对手和相关细菌的作用下代谢图谱的变化。第二个目标是描述软骨藻酸增加对社区成员的反应的机制。该项目的最终目标是通过测试特定化合物的产生和总体代谢谱的变化如何影响竞争浮游植物和相关细菌，确定假硝化细菌代谢谱变化的生态相关性。

0754289PrinceThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Emily K. Prince to work with Dr. Georg Pohnert at Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena, Germany.Organisms may interact with their community by increasing the production of compounds in order defend against predation, attract mates, kill competitors, avoid pathogens, establish symbiosis, etc. Assessing these changes can be difficult, but assuming constant production of compounds provides an incomplete picture of how organisms interact. Marine diatoms in the Pseudo-nitzschia genus increase the production of the neurotoxic compound domoic acid in response to the presence of other organisms, making this ecologically and economically important species a good model for understanding how planktonic organisms respond chemically to their environment. Like other harmful algal blooms, blooms of Pseudo-nitzschia are linked to deleterious effects on human and ecosystem health. Because these blooms are increasing worldwide, and represent an increasing global threat to fisheries and coastal tourism, understanding factors that regulate Pseudo-nitzchia metabolism and toxin production is crucial. Pseudo-nitzschia spp. likely detect and respond to other members of the community by modulating the production of specific compounds, resulting in altered ecological interactions. This project has three primary objectives. The first is to determine changes in the metabolic profile of Pseudo-nitzschia in response to competitors and associated bacteria, using UPLC-ToF MS and GC-ToF MS to create metabolic profiles, and HPLC, GC, and NMR to identify specific compounds. The second objective is to characterize of the mechanism of by which domoic acid increases in response to members of the community. The final objective of this project is to determine the ecological relevance of changes to Pseudo-nitzschia's metabolic profile by testing how changes in the production of specific compounds and overall metabolic profile effect competing phytoplankton and associated bacteria.