RoL: NSFDEB-BSF: Studying the evolution of the antiviral pathway in a cnidarian model interacting with diverse viral communities

Viruses and the immune systems of animals evolve in response to each other. Animals have various molecular mechanisms for detection and destruction of diverse viruses. Despite viruses exerting tremendous costs to all animals, how invertebrates, particularly marine species, respond and adapt to virus communities has received more limited research. The limitations for understanding the impact of viral communities on marine invertebrates results from an incomplete understanding of how viruses vary over different populations as well as the precise mechanisms of the immune system that the host utilizes in controlling their viral community. The research team will utilize a sea anemone (Nematostella vectensis) to study host immunity in the laboratory and the field to characterize the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of this symbiosis. This project will provide a synergistic international collaboration with Dr. Yehu Moran (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) to connect the ecology and symbioses of cnidarians with the molecular mechanisms of antiviral responses. This research will provide mentoring and training for a postdoctoral fellow as well as graduate and undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Additional research and educational opportunities will be provided through expansion of a SEA-PHAGES course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) and outreach through a new Center for Microbial Genomics at UNC Charlotte.

Knowledge of the environmental, genetic, and molecular factors involved in modulating expression of antiviral pathways is essential to understand and predict how any host species will respond to diverse viral communities. The integrative research approach in this project will determine how shifts in the biotic and abiotic features of habitats correlate with changes in the expression of the antiviral response for a cnidarian host. The research team will use comparative genomics to detect signatures of positive selection by comparing the viromes and transcriptomes of populations of Nematostella vectensis across its native and introduced geographic range in North America. They will then use a combination of mesocosm and laboratory studies to quantify the extent of local adaptation of the anemone to specific viral communities through a combination of organismal and gene expression studies. They will employ a combination of transgenic approaches combined with laboratory and mesocosm studies to characterize how individual components of the antiviral response respond and mediate exposure to a diverse viral community. Nematostella vectensis has been utilized as a model for the ecological and evolutionary genomics by the international research team to understand the genetic diversity of this invertebrate, the role for nucleotide variation in local adaptation, and the function of focal genes through transgenic approaches. This project is expected to have a significant impact by identifying the evolution of these antiviral mechanisms in populations with exposure to different viruses and the mechanisms for viral detection and destruction in heterogeneous habitats that are vulnerable to the ongoing climate change.

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.