Real-time host-parasite coevolution in natural microbial communities

天然微生物群落中的实时宿主-寄生虫协同进化

基本信息

批准号：
NE/J021806/1
负责人：
Angus Buckling
金额：
$ 61.04万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2012
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2012 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FJ021806%2F1
关键词：
Real time host parasite coevolution

项目摘要

The functioning of all ecosystems is ultimately dependent on the diversity of its community of bacteria. A key factor maintaining diversity in these communities are viruses that reproduce inside and ultimately kill bacteria. Our recent work has shown that bacteria and their viruses are literally evolving in the soil all around us over a matter of days, locked into coevolutionary arms races where bacteria evolve resistance to viruses and viruses evolve to overcome this defense. As well as affecting community structure, this rapid coevolution has other important indirect effects, such as causing the evolution of 'mutator' bacteria that pose a significant health risk to other organisms. Our aim is to follow and characterise these real-time coevolutionary arms races between bacteria and viruses in natural environments: something never previosuly done for any organisms. By using unique genetic markers, we can release and then re-capture through time the evolving bacteria and viruses. We will take advantage of our experience using next generation sequencing to link changes in resistance and infectivity traits with mutations occurring within the genomes of the organisms.In addition to characterising these coevolutionary dynamics, we will test hypotheses about how the environment affects coevolution. Our preliminary work suggests that coevolution is likely to fundmantally differ based on the extent to which soil is mixed, and how close bacteria are to plants, which exude highly nutritious food for bacteria. Specifically, the arms race will be more intense and hence be of greater significance for structuring communities in well mixed soil around plants.While the work investigates natural bacteria-virus coevolutionary interactions in soil, the broader implications are extensive. First, there is increasing interest in using viruses to kill bacteria that cause infections of humans, animals and crops, hence determing the significance of evolution in the fight between these organisms is crucial. Second, the study of real-time coevolution in natural environments has simply not been possible in any other system, allowing us to test fundamental hypotheses developed through decades of theoretical work, natural surveys and laboratory studies.

所有生态系统的功能最终取决于其细菌社区的多样性。维持这些社区多样性的关键因素是在内部繁殖并最终杀死细菌的病毒。我们最近的工作表明，细菌及其病毒在几天之内实际上在我们周围的土壤中逐渐发展，锁定在协同进化的武器种族中，细菌会进化对病毒和病毒的耐药性，并进化以克服这种防御。除了影响社区结构外，这种快速的协同进化还具有其他重要的间接影响，例如导致“突变器”细菌的进化，这对其他生物构成了重大的健康风险。我们的目的是跟随并表征自然环境中细菌与病毒之间的这些实时协同进化的武器竞赛：任何生物都不会做任何事情。通过使用独特的遗传标记，我们可以在不断发展的细菌和病毒中释放然后重新捕获。我们将利用下一代测序来利用我们的经验，将抗性和感染性状的变化与生物体基因组内发生的突变联系起来。在表征这些协同进化动力学的外，我们将测试有关环境如何影响共同进化的假设。我们的初步工作表明，基于土壤混合的程度以及细菌与植物的距离程度，共同进化可能会在基金上有所不同，植物散发着高度营养的细菌食物。具体而言，武器竞赛将更加激烈，因此对于在植物周围混合土壤中构建社区的构建社区具有更大的意义。虽然这项工作研究了土壤中天然细菌 - 病毒的协同进化相互作用，但更广泛的含义是广泛的。首先，对使用病毒杀死引起人类，动物和农作物感染的细菌的兴趣越来越大，因此确定这些生物之间战斗进化的意义至关重要。其次，在任何其他系统中根本不可能对自然环境中实时协同进化进行研究，从而使我们能够测试通过数十年的理论工作，自然调查和实验室研究发展的基本假设。