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SFB 1182:  Origin and Function of Metaorganisms

Subject Area Biology
Medicine
Term since 2016
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261376515
 
We are not alone: All multicellular organisms have evolved in the presence of microbes and almost all are host to a community of microorganisms, the microbiome. Most multicellular organisms and their microbiome form an intertwined, organizational unit, the so-called metaorganism. The microbiome is critically involved in shaping its host’s life-history and influences a diversity of host functions, ranging from development, nervous system functions, food digestion, immunity, and animal behavior. Consequently, the metaorganism perspective is key to a full appreciation of biological functions. To date, however, the diversity of host-microbiome interactions across the tree of life, the resulting effects on metaorganism biology, and the evolutionary and molecular underpinnings of microbiome-mediated functions are still only poorly understood. The CRC 1182 aims to fill these important current knowledge gaps. The overall objectives of the CRC 1182 are to improve our general understanding of the evolution and function of host-microbiome interactions. We are particularly interested in understanding how the microbiome shapes evolutionary adaptation, how host and microbiome communicate, how they modulate different types of interactions within the metaorganism, and how the microbiome shapes host development, immunity, metabolism and disease. During the first two funding periods, the CRC has gathered a comprehensive knowledge base on these topics and stimulated new research avenues, which benefit from the diverse scientific backgrounds and established model systems of the CRC’s scientists. Our CRC has become a tightly connected community, who jointly generated novel insights into metaorganism biology, as evidenced by more than 50 collaborative publications from the 2nd funding period. For the proposed third funding period, this knowledge base will be harnessed to manipulate the metaorganism in a predictable way and characterize specific molecular and eco-evolutionary processes underlying metaorganism function. The CRC takes advantage of the diversity of studied host systems, ranging from plants over early branching animal hosts (e.g., placozoans, sponges, polyps, jellyfish, anthozoans), ecdysozoan model species (e.g., C. elegans, Drosophila) to different vertebrate hosts (pipefish, mouse, primates, including humans). The CRC specifically strives for experimental tests of metaorganism evolution and function and a high level of integration across projects. Next to individual projects, the CRC 1182 will focus on six Cross-Model-System studies, which explicitly combine data from different metaorganism models to identify general principles governing host-microbiome metabolism, stability and resilience, microbial transmission routes, and microbe-microbe interactions. Overall, the CRC 1182 will use the metaorganism perspective and the diversity of considered host systems to contribute to a new integrated understanding of the biology of multicellular organisms.
DFG Programme Collaborative Research Centres

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Spokespersons Professor Dr. Thomas C. G. Bosch, until 12/2022; Professor Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg, since 1/2023
 
 

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