Collaborative Research: Phylogeny of Cnidaria - Convergent Evolution of Eyes, Gene Expression, and Cell Types

合作研究：刺胞动物的系统发育——眼睛、基因表达和细胞类型的趋同进化

• 批准号: 2153774
• 负责人: Paulyn Cartwright
• 金额: $ 49.49万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-01 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2153774&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Phylogeny; Cnidaria; Convergent

This project will improve knowledge of the evolutionary relationships of medusozoa (“jellyfish”) and the origin and evolution of eyes. Jellyfish are among the most distant relatives of humans that have eyes that still use genes similar to those used in human eyes. Within medusozoans, eyes originated separately at least nine times from a common genetic toolkit. This research will first expand knowledge of medusozoan relationships to untangle the complex evolutionary history of eyes. Next, this research will determine how similar are the genes expressed in each of the separately originated eyes. The team assembled for this project represents a new collaboration of scientists from multiple institutions with distinct but complementary expertise. The research will promote participation of women and underrepresented groups in all aspects of the project, will improve STEM education through training in integrative biology, and will incorporate the research in STEM undergraduate courses and a biodiversity workshop at a field station. The team will increase public engagement through educational articles and outreach activities, including integration of charismatic jellyfish into existing K12 outreach programs. Public outreach on the genetics of diverse eyes will also provide important information to improve understanding of important biological concepts and theories.Convergent evolution is a fascinating hallmark of biology that provides comparative biologists with replicated events in the otherwise singular history of life. Convergent traits that are also experimentally tractable, referred to as ‘meta-models’, provide opportunities for biologists to address questions about how repeatable evolution is at different levels of organization. This project will bring together a diverse group of collaborators to develop medusozoan cnidarians as a phylogenetic meta-model to address convergent evolution of eyes at different levels of organization, including genes, cells, and morphology. This award will support research to: a) test homology of eyes by generating a data-rich phylogeny that includes new transcriptomes of Medusozoa to reconstruct presence/absence of eyes across the group; b) compare gene expression profiles of convergently evolved eyes and other tissues (as controls) from cnidarians to identify conserved and convergent patterns of gene expression, and c) incorporate ‘tree-thinking’ into single-cell transcriptomics to analyze cell-type phylogenies and quantify histories of cell-types in convergently evolved eyes. Results form these studies will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at scientific meetings.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.

该项目将增进对水母动物（“水母”）进化关系以及眼睛起源和进化的了解。水母是人类最远亲，它们的眼睛仍然使用与人类眼睛相似的基因。 ，眼睛至少有九次分别起源于一个共同的遗传工具包。这项研究将首先扩展对水生动物关系的了解，以解开眼睛复杂的进化历史。接下来，这项研究将确定每个眼睛中表达的基因有多相似。为该项目组建的团队分别代表了来自多个机构的科学家的新合作，这些机构具有独特但互补的专业知识，该研究将促进妇女和代表性不足的群体参与该项目的各个方面，并将通过综合培训改善 STEM 教育。该团队将通过教育文章和外展活动（包括将魅力水母纳入现有的 K12 遗传学外展项目）来增加公众参与。不同的眼睛会还提供了重要信息，以提高对重要生物学概念和理论的理解。趋同进化是生物学的一个令人着迷的标志，它为比较生物学家提供了在其他单一生命历史中重复的事件，这些特征也可以通过实验处理，称为“元”。 -模型”，为生物学家提供了解决不同组织层次上如何可重复进化的问题的机会，该项目将汇集不同的合作者群体，开发水生动物刺胞动物作为系统发育元模型。解决眼睛在不同组织层面（包括基因、细胞和形态）的趋同进化问题。该奖项将支持以下研究：a）通过生成包含水母动物新转录组的数据丰富的系统发育来测试眼睛的同源性，以重建存在/不存在。 b) 比较来自刺胞动物的趋同进化的眼睛和其他组织（作为对照）的基因表达谱，以识别基因表达的保守和趋同模式，以及 c) 纳入“树思维”这些研究的结果将发表在同行评审的科学期刊上，并在科学会议上发表。该奖项是 NSF 的法定使命，并已被授予。通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。