Collaborative Research: Evaluating the contributions of horizontally transferred bacterial genes and endogenous duplication events to the diversification of diatoms

该项目的目标是确定新的硅藻性状的来源，这些性状有助于其非凡的代谢和物种水平的多样性。有些特征是由从远亲细菌那里获得的基因编码的，而细菌在生命之树上是一个完全不同的王国。其他基因似乎是由硅藻基因组内的作用过程产生的。该项目将生成250种不同硅藻物种的基因组规模数据。这些数据将用于：(1)推断进化关系，(2)确定新基因的来源——无论是内在的还是外在的，以及(3)将基因获得的模式和时间与新性状的起源联系起来。本研究将培养一名博士后研究员、本科生和研究生。据估计，硅藻有20万种，是海洋和淡水浮游植物中最多样化的群体之一。这些微小的“植物”在全球碳和氧的循环中发挥着重要作用，每五次人类呼吸中就有一次产生氧气。它们制造的脂肪酸沿着食物链往上走，最终进入鱼类，人类将鱼类收获以获取鱼油。硅藻拥有广泛的新特征，这些特征共同促进了它们在世界海洋中的突出地位。最终，这个项目将揭示大自然是如何组装世界上最多样化和生态最重要的谱系之一的马赛克基因组的。

The goal of this project is to identify the sources of novel diatom traits, which have contributed to their extraordinary metabolic and species-level diversity. Some traits are encoded by genes acquired from distantly related bacteria, an entirely different kingdom in the tree of life. Other genes appear to have been generated by processes acting within diatom genomes. This project will generate genome-scale data for 250 phylogenetically disparate diatom species. These data will be used to: (1) infer evolutionary relationships, (2) identify the sources - whether intrinsic or extrinsic - of new genes, and (3) correlate the pattern and timing of gene acquisitions with the origins of novel traits.This study would result in the training of a post-doctoral researcher, undergraduates and graduate students. With an estimated 200,000 species, diatoms are one of the most diverse groups of marine and freshwater phytoplankton. These microscopic "plants" play a major role in the global cycling of carbon and oxygen, producing the oxygen for one of every five human breaths. They manufacture the fatty acids that make their way up the food chain, eventually into fish, which humans harvest for fish oils. Diatoms possess a broad range of novel traits that, together, have facilitated their rise to prominence in the world's oceans. Ultimately, this project will reveal how nature has assembled the mosaic genomes of one of the world's most diverse and ecologically important lineages.