Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C510632/1
Phenotypic transitions in environmental stress tolerance: opening the black box.
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor AR Cossins, University of Liverpool, Sch of Biological Sciences
- Grant held at:
- University of Liverpool, Sch of Biological Sciences
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Pollution and Waste
- Global Change
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Science Topics:
- Environmental Genomics
- Environmental Physiology
- Environmental Informatics
- Abstract:
- While humans and numerous other animals are able to control their own body temperature, the overwhelming majority of living things on this planet do not have this ability. Changes in environmental temperature as with the seasons can have profound effects upon fitness and survival. Examples of such organisms include plants, insects and nematodes - the latter being small roundworms found in almost every habitat on earth, including freshwater lakes, oceans, the frozen deserts of Antarctica and tropical rainforests. How have these organisms been able to colonize such a diverse range of thermal habitats? What special survival strategies have they developed to tolerate extremes of winter cold or summer heat when their bodies experience the full force of the change in temperature? Answering these questions is important for numerous reasons. Although organisms such as nematodes are small, they are of critical importance to humans. They are a key component of our ecosystem and without them we could not exist. Certain pest species, however, represent a huge burden to mankind, costing billions of dollars in crop damage and/or contributing to many of the world's worst diseases. Understanding how these animals are able to survive environmental stress is also important because our climate is constantly changing, and the ability of all organisms to adapt to these changes is critical to sustaining the diversity of habitats we experience today. This project seeks to identify the key factors influencing cold stress survival in animals, using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model species. C. elegans represents an ideal organism to study stress tolerance, and is easy to rear in large numbers under laboratory conditions. We also have the ability to identify (and manipulate) every single gene in this species; and it is an organisms genes that will determine its ability to survive environmental stress. We already know that C. elegans has a greater cold tolerance (to 0?C) if maintained at 10?C instead of 25?C, and we have identified some of the genes involved in this increase in stress tolerance. Our project sets out to define the mechanisms by which animals in general change their bodies to cope with environmental cold. We have 3 main objectives - 1. To identify which genes are most important in the seasonal enhancement of cold tolerance, and to measure the effect of deleting these genes on survival in extreme cold. 2. To determine how quickly different genes respond to changes in temperature, and identity what happens to these genes during stress recovery. 3. To describe different regulatory pathways, from the point of sensing temperature change to achieving maximum stress tolerance. Also to determine how different responses systems work together. By understanding temperature stress adaptations in C. elegans we hope to identify stress response mechanisms common to all organisms. The results of this study could then be used to develop techniques of manipulating stress tolerance. This would have important implications in limiting the stress tolerance of problem species such as crop pests or vectors of disease, or enhancing the stress tolerance of beneficial species. understanding cold survival also has many important medical applications, including the long term (frozen) storage of human/animal tissues.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C510632/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grants Pre FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Standard Grant
This grant award has a total value of £299,223
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs | Total - Indirect Costs | Total - Equipment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £154,238 | £4,880 | £59,754 | £70,950 | £9,400 |
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