Collaborative Research: Aureochromes-light signaling in the sea

光合生物不仅依靠光来固定二氧化碳，而且还利用光信息来了解环境。科学界对生活在陆地上的生物的光调节反应有着广泛的了解。在那里，蓝光和红光传感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，水生环境强烈富集蓝光，而红光被剥夺。生活在淡水或海洋环境中的光合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Aureochromes的蓝光传感蛋白的功能，这些蛋白广泛分布于海藻中。该项目还将跨学科（光化学，生物化学，细胞/分子生物学，数学建模）培训本科生/研究生和博士后助理，并提供可视化工具来教授在入门化学和生物学中使用数学。学校教师是提高公众科学素养的最前沿，本项目将继续开展先前资助的工作，对副教授进行科学实践和教学培训，并确定这些副教授如何学习，为什么学习，并调查他们的思维方式是否在研究和教学培训期间发生变化。研究人员将研究以下假设：光化学动力学、蛋白质光感受器的表达模式和蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用网络塑造了光反应的动力学，从而塑造了生物体对变化的光通量的反应。为了实现对金色素信号传导的全面理解，研究人员将开发金色素信号转导的明确数学模型，在那里他们将通过实验确定调节这些LOV结构域光感受器的光化学的动力学条件，它们的竞争性二聚化，表达和降解速率以及DNA结合能力。结合起来，该项目将研究这些因素如何影响转录活性和影响细胞生理。以这种方式，这项工作将能够构建一个完整的蓝光调节N。oceanica将局部光化学与生物体的生理学结合在一个可预测和可证伪的模型中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.