Collaborative Research: Aureochromes-light signaling in the sea

光合作用的有机体不仅依靠光来固定二氧化碳，而且还利用光信息来了解他们的环境。科学界对生活在陆地上的有机体的光调节反应有广泛的理解。在那里，蓝光和红光感应蛋白帮助陆地植物确定信息，如邻居竞争的存在或一天中的时间。然而，地球表面约71%是水，水生环境强烈富含蓝光，缺乏红光。生活在淡水或海洋环境中的光合作用生物如何利用光的质量和数量信息是一个悬而未决的问题。作为该项目的一部分，PI将研究一组被称为金色蛋白的蓝光感应蛋白的功能，这种蛋白广泛分布于海藻中。该项目还将培训本科生/研究生和博士后助理，跨学科(光化学、生物化学、细胞/分子生物学、数学建模)，并提供可视化工具，在化学和生物学入门课程中教授数学的使用。学校教师处于提高公众科学素养的最前线，这个项目将继续以前资助的工作，培训职前教育工作者关于科学实践和教学，并确定这些职前教师是如何学习的，为什么他们学习，并调查他们的思维方式是否在研究和教学培训期间改变。利用单细胞微藻海洋微绿藻，PI将调查假说，即光化学动力学，表达模式和蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用网络的蛋白质光感受器塑造光反应的动态，因此有机体对变化的光流动的反应。为了实现对金色素信号的全球理解，研究人员将开发明确的金色素信号转导的数学模型，在那里他们将通过实验确定调控这些LOV结构域光受体的光化学、它们的竞争性二聚化、表达和降解速率以及DNA结合能力的动力学项。结合起来，这个项目将研究这些因素如何影响转录活性和影响细胞生理学。通过这种方式，这项工作将能够构建一个完整的海洋北极星蓝光调节模型，以一种可预测和可证伪的模型将本地光化学与生物体生理学相结合。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Photosynthetic organisms rely on light not only to fix CO2, but they also use light information to learn about their environment. The scientific community has a broad understanding of light-regulated responses in organisms living on land. There, blue and red light sensing proteins help land plants determine information such as the presence of neighbor competition or the time of day. However, about 71% of the Earth surface is water, and aquatic environments are strongly enriched in blue light and deprived of red light. How photosynthetic organisms living in freshwater or marine environments harness light quality and quantity information is an open question. As part of this project the PIs will investigate the function of a group of blue light sensing proteins called Aureochromes, which are widely distributed in marine algae. This project will also train undergraduate/graduate students and postdoctoral associates across disciplines (photochemistry, biochemistry, cell/molecular biology, mathematical modeling) and provide visualization tools to teach the use of math in introductory chemistry and biology. School teachers are at the frontline of improving public scientific literacy and this project will continue previously funded work to train preservice educators on science practices and teaching, and identify how these preservice teachers learn, why they learn, and to investigate if their way of thinking changes during the research and teaching training.Using the unicellular microalga Nannochloropsis oceanica, the PIs will investigate the hypothesis that photochemical kinetics, expression patterns and protein-protein interaction networks of protein photoreceptors shape the dynamics of light responses and therefore the organism’s response to changing light fluencies. To achieve this global understanding of aureochrome signaling, the researchers will develop explicit mathematical models of aureochrome signal transduction, where they will experimentally determine kinetic terms regulating the photochemistry of these LOV domain photoreceptors, their competitive dimerization, expression and degradation rates, and DNA binding capacity. Combined, this project will examine how these factors influence transcriptional activity and impact cell physiology. In this manner, this work will enable the construction of a complete model of blue-light regulation of N. oceanica that integrates local photochemistry with organism’s physiology in a predictive, and falsifiable model.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.