CAREER: Selective activation of catalytic RNA to control energy flow in microbial consortia

职业：选择性激活催化 RNA 以控制微生物群落中的能量流

• 批准号: 2237512
• 负责人: James Chappell
• 金额: $ 64.97万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2028-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2237512&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Selective; activation; catalytic; RNA; CAREER; Selective; activation; catalytic; RNA

Microbial communities are found almost everywhere and underlie processes critical to agriculture, waste treatment, the longevity of materials, and human health. Genetic manipulation of these communities can be used to understand how they form and to introduce new functions to increase the agricultural productivity of soil, improve human health, recover energy from waste materials to achieve a circular economy, and more. To that end, this project creates a new method for genetically programming microbial communities that will open the door for new applications in biotechnology and medicine. This project also carries out an integrated research and education plan that focuses on community colleges. While community colleges educate a large and diverse student body, they often lack access to high-impact research experiences. Through a series of research-focused activities, this project aims to increase the number of community college students pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the last decade, great progress has been made in developing frameworks to genetically program model microbes grown in the laboratory. To program the native microbial communities found in soils, rivers, guts, minerals, and built materials, analogous frameworks will be required. This project addresses the broad challenge of genetically engineering microbial communities that are composed of diverse non-model species and often found in complex matrices (e.g., soil, biofilms, materials). Engineered RNA systems will be used to study how different genetic programs spread throughout microbial communities and to implement spatiotemporal control such that genetic programs are only activated in specific community members. These methods will be combined and applied to create genetic programs that enhance the ability of microbial communities to harvest energy directly from waste materials.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.

微生物群落几乎到处都是，并且是对农业，废物处理，材料的寿命和人类健康至关重要的过程的基础。可以使用对这些社区的遗传操纵来了解它们的形成并引入新功能，以提高土壤的农业生产力，改善人类健康，从废物中回收能源以实现循环经济，等等。为此，该项目为基因编程微生物群落创造了一种新方法，该方法将为生物技术和医学领域的新应用打开大门。该项目还执行了一项集中的研究和教育计划，该计划侧重于社区大学。尽管社区学院教育一个庞大而多样化的学生团体，但他们通常无法获得高影响力的研究经验。通过一系列以研究为重点的活动，该项目旨在增加从事科学，技术，工程和数学学位和职业（STEM）学位和职业的社区大学生的数量。在过去的十年中，在开发框架上，在实验室中生长的微生物进行了遗传编程模型，取得了巨大进展。为了对土壤，河流，胆量，矿物质和建筑材料中发现的本地微生物群落进行编程，将需要类似的框架。该项目解决了由多种非模型物种组成的基因工程微生物群落的广泛挑战，通常在复杂的矩阵（例如土壤，生物膜，材料）中发现。工程RNA系统将用于研究如何在微生物群落中传播不同的遗传程序并实施时空控制，从而仅在特定的社区成员中激活遗传程序。这些方法将被合并并应用于创建遗传程序，以增强微生物群落直接从废物材料中收获能量的能力。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的影响来审查标准的评估值得支持的。