Collaborative: RUI: Engaging undergraduates in genomic questions and environmental context: building a database of complex phenotypes for plant knockout mutants

合作：RUI：让本科生参与基因组问题和环境背景：为植物敲除突变体建立复杂表型数据库

• 批准号: 1052262
• 负责人: Matthew Rutter
• 金额: $ 42.25万
• 依托单位: College of Charleston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-04-15 至 2016-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1052262&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; RUI; Engaging; undergraduates; genomic

What is the effect of a mutation that "knocks out" a single gene in an organism's genome? Unsatisfyingly, today's plant geneticists can only say: "It depends." Only a small minority of mutations are lethal or have a significant impact. For the vast majority, at most only subtle effects have been detected. Plant genetics is poised to progress rapidly in remedying this situation, using a collection of "knockout" mutant strains of the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. Knockouts, carrying a tiny tagged segment of disruptive DNA in one targeted gene, are already available for ~67% of the 27,000+ unique genes in this plant's genome. Inspired by progress in yeast genetics, the project will grow large subsets of these knockouts in benign and challenging environments, quantifying ecological performance attributes (e.g., population growth rate, fruit yield). We predict that, as in yeast, such an approach will reveal important phenotypic differences between mutant and control lines and possibly reveal undiscovered genome-wide patterns. The project is a collaboration of primarily undergraduate institutions and will train young scientists in how major genomic questions are addressed by networks of researchers. The project will involve screening 7000 available T-DNA lines to identify those that have mutations at only one gene, providing these results to the biological community. Traits relevant to plant performance will be measured in over 3000 single-mutant lines, across multiple environments. Cyberinfrastructure will be developed to disseminate common protocols and to archive and index data. Over 50 undergraduate researchers will be involved in collecting and analyzing data and communicating results. The project also includes a study of how participating in a distributed research network influences undergraduates' access to social capital within the scientific community. Results from this aspect of the work will lay the foundation for a larger scale, empirical study of the outcomes undergraduates realize by participating in research networks.

“敲除”生物体基因组中单个基因的突变会产生什么影响？令人不满意的是，今天的植物遗传学家只能说：“这要看情况。”只有一小部分突变是致命的或具有重大影响。对于绝大多数人来说，最多只检测到微妙的影响。植物遗传学有望通过使用模式物种拟南芥的一系列“敲除”突变株来纠正这种情况，从而迅速取得进展。敲除技术在一个目标基因中携带一小段带有破坏性 DNA 的微小标记片段，已可用于该植物基因组中 27,000 多个独特基因中约 67% 的基因。受酵母遗传学进展的启发，该项目将在良性和具有挑战性的环境中种植这些基因敲除的大量子集，量化生态性能属性（例如种群增长率、果实产量）。我们预测，就像在酵母中一样，这种方法将揭示突变体和对照系之间的重要表型差异，并可能揭示未被发现的全基因组模式。该项目主要是本科机构的合作项目，将培训年轻科学家如何通过研究人员网络解决主要的基因组问题。该项目将筛选 7000 个可用的 T-DNA 系，以识别那些仅在一个基因上发生突变的系，并将这些结果提供给生物界。 与植物性能相关的性状将在多个环境中的 3000 多个单突变体品系中进行测量。将开发网络基础设施来传播通用协议以及归档和索引数据。 超过 50 名本科生研究人员将参与收集和分析数据以及交流结果。该项目还包括一项关于参与分布式研究网络如何影响本科生在科学界获得社会资本的研究。这方面的工作结果将为对本科生通过参与研究网络所实现的成果进行更大规模的实证研究奠定基础。