| 项目编号: | 1556855
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| 项目名称: | Epigenetic stability and its evolutionary potential |
| 作者: | Kathleen Donohue
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| 承担单位: | Duke University
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| 批准年: | 2016
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| 开始日期: | 2016-04-01
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| 结束日期: | 2019-03-31
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| 资助金额: | 978032
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| 资助来源: | US-NSF
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| 项目类别: | Continuing grant
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| 国家: | US
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| 语种: | 英语
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| 特色学科分类: | Biological Sciences - Environmental Biology
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| 英文关键词: | stability
; methylation state
; methylation stability
; environmental condition
; generation
; such stability
; epigenetic change
; locus
; environmental reversibility/stability
; epigenetic stability
|
| 英文摘要: | This study will examine how environmental conditions that alter patterns of gene expression and are passed to offspring can influence the process of evolution. Environmental conditions can cause changes in the characteristics of individuals, including their morphology, physiology, development, and behavior. Such environmental effects can be ephemeral, or they can persist for whole lifespans or even beyond a single generation. Studying such effects is central to our understanding of the process of evolution, especially as it might be affected by climate change. Epigenetics refers to mechanisms that alter how genetic sequences are translated into functional gene products, and certain epigenetic mechanisms have been implicated in environmental effects on the characteristics of individuals. It has been argued that epigenetic modifications that are stable across generations can be an important source of genetic variation upon which natural selection can act, and that such variation may even be non-random with respect to environmental context and adaptive value. This hypothesis raises a number of compelling questions. First, which epigenetic changes are environmentally induced, and do environment-dependent versus independent changes differ in their stability of inheritance? Second, is the stability of epigenetic alterations itself heritable? Third, is the stability of epigenetic modifications adaptive, and if so, under what conditions? Additionally, this project will train students from high school to graduate school and promote international engagement by graduate students and post-doctoral scholars.
The research program will use Arabidopsis thaliana to test for natural variation in the stability of genome-wide methylation states within and across generations, to test whether such stability depends on environmental conditions, and to test whether environmentally induced changes in methylation state are more or less stable than methylation that does not respond to environmental conditions. As such, it tests the prediction that environmentally-induced epigenetic changes can be an important source of heritable phenotypic variation that can contribute to adaptive evolution. Second, a QTL analysis of methylation states, their stability, and their environmental reversibility will test whether methylation stability has a genetic basis. It will also provide information on the number of methylation states that are regulated by a given QTL, and it will test whether loci that regulate methylation stability within and across generations are genetically associated with loci that regulate their environmental reversibility/stability. Finally, the research will test whether loci that regulate methylation states and their stability are also associated with adaptively significant phenotypes and with fitness itself under constant and variable environments. This research targets the stability of epigenetic changes as a key phenotype by testing whether epigenetic stability has a heritable genetic basis and whether it is adaptive under stable and variable environments. |
| 资源类型: | 项目
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| 标识符: | http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/92625
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| Appears in Collections: | 全球变化的国际研究计划
科学计划与规划
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| Recommended Citation: | |
Kathleen Donohue. Epigenetic stability and its evolutionary potential. 2016-01-01.
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