HEИндивидуална стипендия2023–2025

PEZ · Primordial Germ Cells Environmentally-driven fate in Zebrafish

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2023-09-01 → 2025-08-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 181 153 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Първичните полови клетки при зебрата се променят от повишената температура на водата, което влияе върху определянето на пола. Разбирането на този процес помага за опазването на дивите риби и подобряването на продуктивността в аквакултурите.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Primordial Germ Cells Environmentally-driven fate in Zebrafish

In the context of accelerating global climate change and increasing anthropogenic pollution, aquatic ecosystems are undergoing significant shifts in abiotic conditions, including temperature, pH, salinity, and oxygen levels. These environmental stressors are known to impact animal physiology, particularly reproductive processes, posing a threat to biodiversity, fishery sustainability, and food security. A critical yet understudied consequence of these changes is their impact on sex determination and differentiation in fish species, many of which rely on environmentally influenced systems. This project, PEZ (PGC Environmentally-driven fate in Zebrafish), investigates how elevated water temperatures affect the epigenetic programming of primordial germ cells (PGCs) in zebrafish—a widely used vertebrate model with a polygenic and temperature-sensitive sex determination system. By integrating next-generation sequencing techniques (RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, CUT&RUN, CUT&Tag, Hi-C) and leveraging publicly available datasets, the project aims to map the transcriptomic and epigenetic landscape of PGCs under thermal stress. The central hypothesis is that elevated temperatures during critical windows of PGC development alter gene regulation via epigenetic mechanisms, ultimately skewing sex ratios. Understanding this process will provide mechanistic insights into the early establishment of sex-specific epigenetic marks and their vulnerability to environmental conditions. The outcomes will contribute to resolving key challenges in aquaculture, such as male-biased populations that reduce productivity (e.g., in European sea bass), and inform conservation strategies for wild fish populations facing climate-driven sex ratio imbalances. The project thus addresses both fundamental biological questions and applied challenges in sustainability and food production, while fostering the integration of genomics, environmental science, and developmental biology to assess and mitigate the broader impacts of climate change on aquatic reproductive health.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

In a global climate change scenario with pieces of evidence of abiotic factor changes and the increase of pollutants due to anthropogenic activities, we are starting to accumulate evidence of its effects on animal welfare and physiology. One of these effects is changes in fish sex determination and differentiation processes due to alterations of abiotic and anthropogenic factors. Among these factors, temperature is known to affect sex determination well before the gonads are differentiated, pointing towards an evident interplay between the genetic and environmental factors, even prior to gonad formation at the primordial germ cell (PGCs) stage. However, how temperature controls PGCs and final sex ratios fate is still unknown. In this project, I aim to dissect when and how temperature is controlling the fate of PGCs. Hence, driving the future sex ratio of the population since changes in sex ratios could put at risk future food production and species conservation. To that extent, I propose combining state-of-the-art imaging, genomic, and epigenetic technologies to analyse PGCs transcriptomic and epigenetic landscapes of zebrafish under thermal stress. This project capitalises on combining my background in epigenetics and bioinformatic fields with extensive expertise in developmental biology, fish sex determination and differentiation and spatial transcriptomics of the host labs. This multidisciplinary proposal will explain how temperature increases as predicted on a climate change scenario modulates PGCs fate and identity. These results will significantly advance the field of epigenetics and developmental biology and will impact future food production and species conservation. Finally, the knowledge and skills gained from this project will allow me to become an independent researcher and hopefully enable me to establish my own line of research in Regulatory Genomics applied to aquaculture and marine conservation.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS · MadridКоординаторИспания