Award Abstract # 1750189
CAREER: Unlocking Microbial Condensed Tannin Resistance Mechanisms: Scaling from Enzymes to Biomes

NSF Org: MCB
Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences
Recipient: OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
Initial Amendment Date: December 20, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: March 22, 2018
Award Number: 1750189
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: David Rockcliffe
drockcli@nsf.gov
 (703)292-7123
MCB
 Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences
BIO
 Directorate for Biological Sciences
Start Date: January 1, 2018
End Date: March 31, 2019 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $941,286.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $214,480.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2018 = $56,632.00
History of Investigator:
  • Kelly Wrighton (Principal Investigator)
    kwrighton@gmail.com
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Ohio State University
1960 KENNY RD
COLUMBUS
OH  US  43210-1016
(614)688-8735
Sponsor Congressional District: 03
Primary Place of Performance: Ohio State University
Office of Sponsored Programs
Columbus
OH  US  43210-1016
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
03
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): DLWBSLWAJWR1
Parent UEI: MN4MDDMN8529
NSF Program(s): Systems and Synthetic Biology
Primary Program Source: 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 1045, 7465
Program Element Code(s): 801100
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.074

ABSTRACT

Compounds known as condensed tannins (CTs) impact the ability of microbial communities to synthesize biofuels, detoxify industrial waste streams, perform critical carbon cycling in soils, and fuel nutrition in humans and animals. Despite their global importance, microbial responses to CTs are currently a mystery. This research project targets this substantial knowledge gap to identify the microorganisms and their enzymes that degrade CTs across a range of ecosystems. Beyond scientific advances, this project will also support significant curricular development in the introductory microbiology course at The Ohio State University. Through the development of a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), this project will allow hundreds of undergraduate student-scientists to perform authentic research; experiences shown to enhance scientific education and boost retention of students in scientific disciplines. This project will create a modified undergraduate laboratory class where CURE students participate in the discovery and classification of CT degrading microorganisms new to science, generating data that will be integrated into the research aims of this project. Additionally, the scientific data generated here will be transmitted more broadly to the scientific community via the production of an interactive, web-based bioinformatics platform. As part of the integrated research and educational objectives, this research will generate fundamental knowledge of CT-microbe interactions with direct applications to agricultural, industrial, and health resource management.

Today the diversity of microorganisms, enzymes, and pathways mediating microbial CT degradation are currently unknown. The overarching goal of this research project is to test the central hypothesis that mechanisms for tolerance and degradation of CTs are widely encoded in microbial genomes across ecosystems, yet currently represent a cryptic microbial metabolism. This project tracks CT metabolism from organismal to ecosystem scales, identifying the enzymatic catalysts of organismal CT tolerance and degradation, the coordinated responses to CT perturbation in microbial communities, and the extent of CT metabolisms across ecosystems. Here, parallel isolate and community genomics paired to expression analyses and high-resolution CT metabolite data will elucidate the organisms, enzymes, and metabolisms mediating CT degradation and resistance. Outcomes from this research project include (1) knowledge of the microbial physiology and ecology of CTs, (2) discovery of novel degradative enzymes that are likely common to anaerobic microorganisms, (3) development of a CT library of biological and metabolite signatures resulting in the identification of microbial polyphenolics and their degradation products.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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McGivern, Bridget B. and Tfaily, Malak M. and Borton, Mikayla A. and Kosina, Suzanne M. and Daly, Rebecca A. and Nicora, Carrie D. and Purvine, Samuel O. and Wong, Allison R. and Lipton, Mary S. and Hoyt, David W. and Northen, Trent R. and Hagerman, Ann E "Decrypting bacterial polyphenol metabolism in an anoxic wetland soil" Nature Communications , v.12 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22765-1 Citation Details
Naumann, Harley and Sepela, Rebecka and Rezaire, Aira and Masih, Sonia and Zeller, Wayne and Reinhardt, Laurie and Robe, Jamison and Sullivan, Michael and Hagerman, Ann "Relationships between Structures of Condensed Tannins from Texas Legumes and Methane Production During In Vitro Rumen Digestion" Molecules , v.23 , 2018 10.3390/molecules23092123 Citation Details
Shaffer, Michael and Borton, Mikayla A and McGivern, Bridget B and Zayed, Ahmed A and La Rosa, Sabina Leanti and Solden, Lindsey M and Liu, Pengfei and Narrowe, Adrienne B and Rodríguez-Ramos, Josué and Bolduc, Benjamin and Gazitúa, M Consuelo and Daly, R "DRAM for distilling microbial metabolism to automate the curation of microbiome function" Nucleic Acids Research , v.48 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa621 Citation Details
Solden, Lindsey M. and Naas, Adrian E. and Roux, Simon and Daly, Rebecca A. and Collins, William B. and Nicora, Carrie D. and Purvine, Sam O. and Hoyt, David W. and Schückel, Julia and Jørgensen, Bodil and Willats, William and Spalinger, Donald E. and Fir "Interspecies cross-feeding orchestrates carbon degradation in the rumen ecosystem" Nature Microbiology , v.3 , 2018 10.1038/s41564-018-0225-4 Citation Details

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