Effects of herbicide exposure on male reproduction in Drosophila melanogaster

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然农药对农业有益，但当它们与非目标物种相互作用时，会成为环境毒物。这些毒物中有许多对人体健康有有害影响。为了预测暴露对健康的潜在影响，至关重要的是要知道哪些特征受到影响，以及了解这些影响是如何产生的遗传基础。了解遗传变异是如何导致易感性的，将最终使我们能够识别出最可能因暴露于这些环境毒物而受到不利影响的个体。不幸的是，由于缺乏一个模型实验遗传系统来研究环境毒物在整个生物体特征水平上的影响，在种群水平上的影响就更有限了。我研究项目的长期目标是利用遗传系统模型——黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster），研究自然种群对环境毒物易感性的遗传基础。本研究的总体目标是研究一种除草剂对黑腹草雄性生殖性能的影响，研究暴露后基因表达的全基因组变化，并开始探索自然遗传变异如何影响该除草剂对雄性生殖的易感性。我们的工作将使未来的项目能够剖析易感性的遗传机制，阐明重要的途径和系统，并预测暴露将如何影响生殖能力。最终，我们希望能够识别出因暴露于环境有毒物质而受到不利影响的个体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although beneficial in agriculture, pesticides can become environmental toxicants when they interact with non-target species. Many of these toxicants have detrimental effects on human health. In order to predict the potential health effects of exposure it is critical to know what traits are affected, as well as understand the genetic basis for how those effects are produced. Understanding how genetic variation contributes to susceptibility will ultimately allow the identification of individuals who are most likely to be adversely affected by exposure to these environmental toxicants. Unfortunately, we are limited by the lack of a model experimental genetic system to study the effects of environmental toxicants at the level of whole organism traits and even more limited at the level of the population. The long-term aim of my research program is to use the model genetic system, Drosophila melanogaster, to study the genetic basis underlying susceptibility to environmental toxicants in natural populations. The overall goal of this proposal is to study the effects of an herbicide on male reproductive performance in D. melanogaster, investigate genome-wide changes in gene expression after exposure, and begin to explore how natural genetic variation affects reproductive susceptibility to this herbicide. Our work will enable future projects to dissect the genetic mechanisms of susceptibility, elucidate the pathways and systems that are important, and predict how exposure will affect reproductive capability. Ultimately, we hope to be able to identify individuals at risk for being adversely affected by exposure to environmental toxicants. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Environmental toxicants, such as pesticides, are serious threats to human health but the genetic basis underlying their effects can be difficult to study in humans. The proposed research will establish the model genetic system, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model toxicology system to study the effects of environmental pollutants on reproductive performance and start to identify novel genes that are involved in responding to these environmental stressors.