Collaborative Research: Illuminating microbes and their viruses within the dark ocean crust through strain-level approaches

合作研究：通过菌株水平的方法阐明黑暗海洋地壳内的微生物及其病毒

• 批准号: 1851099
• 负责人: Stephanie Carr
• 金额: $ 11.88万
• 依托单位: Hartwick College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-05-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1851099&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Illuminating; microbes; their

Our planet's seafloor consists primarily of sediment layered over a basement of basalt rock. Every 50,000 to 100,000 years, a volume of seawater equivalent to the entire global ocean circulates through cracks and fissures of this basement beneath the seafloor, forming one of the largest reservoirs for microscopic life on Earth. While high temperature fluids discharging at iconic hydrothermal vents at mid-ocean ridges are visually striking, the fluid flowing in and out of the flanks of these ridges is around three orders of magnitude greater and rivals the discharge of all rivers to the ocean. As it travels through the deep subseafloor, this fluid is significantly altered by water and rock interaction and the metabolic activity of microorganisms that are thought to ultimately help shape nutrient and energy budgets of the global ocean. However, our knowledge and understanding of this system suffer greatly from logistical difficulties in accessing it for scientific inquiry. Initial evidence suggests uncharacterized microbes that possess ancient homologs of enzymes involved in key metabolic pathways thought to be important to Earth's early microbial inhabitants populate this biome and are infected by novel viruses. In this study, the investigators are performing an integrated set of observations, experiments, and analyses aimed to advance our understanding of deep subseafloor microbes and their viruses by providing new, fundamental insights into which organisms and metabolisms are active in this environment, their evolutionary history and genetic characteristics, and their interactions. This project contributes to the development of a diverse STEM-educated workforce, and incorporate the training of one postdoctoral scientist, two graduate students, and ~29 undergraduate students in field-based research, wet-lab experimentation, and bioinformatics. This project also fosters a unique collaboration between scientists and the University of Hawaii Academy for Creative Media that supports undergraduate interns from the Academy to work with project personnel and produce creative videos and graphics to communicate aspects of our research to diverse audiences. Finally, this project supports two early career female scientists who started faculty positions in 2017.This project leverages existing sampling infrastructure, DNA sequencing by the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, and a research expedition to the Juan de Fuca Ridge (JdFR) flank off the coast of Washington, USA, that is already supported by NSF. Here, subseafloor observatories have been previously installed to aid in exploring actively flowing subseafloor crustal fluids. These fluids will be collected from different sampling depths for an integrated set of geochemical, genomic, and cultivation studies. The project's specific objectives are to (i) use genomics to characterize microbial and viral populations inhabiting crustal fluids of the JdFR flank, (ii) use transcriptomics to identify the active metabolic pathways that are performing transformations relevant to elemental cycling within microorganisms of the JdFR flank, as well as identify active viral infections in these microbes, and (iii) generate microbial and viral pure cultures or limited diversity enrichments from crustal fluids of the JdFR flank. It combines bioinformatic analyses, controlled laboratory experiments, and field sampling to pursue both hypothesis-driven and discovery-based cultivation experiments, viral assays, and strain-level ecogenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses. Importantly, the investigators intend to generate new cultivated microbes and viruses to serve as model systems for investigating the characteristics of life in the deep ocean crust.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.

我们星球的海底主要由玄武岩地下室层层的沉积物组成。每50,000至100，000年，一量与整个全球海洋相等的海水通过在海底下面的地下室的裂缝和裂缝循环，构成了地球上微观生命的最大水库之一。尽管在视觉山脊上的标志性热液中排出的高温流体在视觉上引人注目，但流入和流出这些山脊的侧面的流体约为三个数量级，与所有河流的排放量大约为大约三个数量级。当它穿过深层的子叶层时，这种液体会因水和岩石相互作用以及微生物的代谢活性而显着改变，而微生物的代谢活性最终被认为有助于塑造全球海洋的养分和能量预算。但是，我们对该系统的知识和理解在访问科学询问时遇到的后勤困难造成了很大的困难。最初的证据表明，未表征的微生物具有与关键代谢途径有关的古代同源物，被认为对地球早期的微生物居民很重要，填充了该生物群体，并被新型病毒感染。在这项研究中，研究人员通过提供新的，基本的见解，对这些环境，其进化史和遗传特征及其相互作用，通过提供新的基本见解，旨在提高我们对深层子层面微生物及其病毒的了解集合，旨在提高我们对深层下层状微生物及其病毒的理解。该项目有助于开发多样化的受过茎教育的劳动力，并纳入了一名博士后科学家，两名研究生的培训，以及约29名本科生在基于现场的研究，湿与LAB实验和生物信息学方面的培训。该项目还促进了科学家与夏威夷大学创意媒体学院之间的独特合作，该媒体支持该学院的本科实习生，与项目人员合作，并制作创意视频和图形，以将我们的研究方面传达给不同的受众。最后，该项目支持了在2017年开始教师职位的两名早期职业女科学家。该项目利用现有的抽样基础设施，能源联合基因组研究所的DNA测序以及对美国华盛顿海岸的Juan de Fuca Ridge（JDFR）的研究探险。在这里，以前已经安装了次层状观测站，以帮助探索积极流动的子层状地壳液。这些流体将从不同的采样深度中收集，以进行一组地球化学，基因组和培养研究。 The project's specific objectives are to (i) use genomics to characterize microbial and viral populations inhabiting crustal fluids of the JdFR flank, (ii) use transcriptomics to identify the active metabolic pathways that are performing transformations relevant to elemental cycling within microorganisms of the JdFR flank, as well as identify active viral infections in these microbes, and (iii) generate microbial and viral纯培养物或JDFR侧面地壳流体的多样性富集。它结合了生物信息学分析，受控的实验室实验和现场抽样，以进行假设驱动和基于发现的培养实验，病毒测定法以及应变水平的生态组和元文字分析。重要的是，研究人员打算生成新的耕种微生物和病毒，以作为研究深海外壳中生活特征的模型系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估标准来评估的。