Descripción del proyecto
Los mecanismos metabólicos del desarrollo embrionario
Tras la fecundación, el cigoto sufre numerosas escisiones o divisiones celulares rápidas para dar lugar al embrión en desarrollo. Esta fase temprana integra señales celulares intrínsecas y extrínsecas, pero aún se desconoce en gran medida los mecanismos precisos que facilitan la adaptación a un entorno en rápido cambio. En el proyecto MetEmbryoniC, financiado por las acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, se pretende examinar el papel del metabolismo como regulador fundamental de la dinámica del citoesqueleto y la función celular. Sus investigadores tratarán de dilucidar la actividad metabólica espaciotemporal y determinar el papel de metabolismo en la regulación del citoesqueleto. Los hallazgos del proyecto no solo mejorarán los conocimientos sobre el desarrollo embrionario, sino que además proporcionarán nueva información sobre enfermedades relacionadas con el metabolismo como, por ejemplo, el cáncer.
Objetivo
Multicellular animals development begins with a sequence of rapid cell cycles and divisions, named ‘cleavages’, leading to the generation of a large pool of cells, from which the embryo develops. While there are several species-specific types of cleavages, the underlying processes of cell-cycle and cytokinesis, involving characteristic large-scale cytoskeletal reorganizations, are well conserved. Yet, how these processes integrate cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic signals, adapting to the rapidly changing environment of the developing embryo, remains largely unknown. An emerging concept implies cell metabolism as an important factor regulating cytoskeletal elements and, hence, cellular function. Here, I test the hypothesis that during cleavages, specific metabolic elements play an essential role in regulating the cytoskeleton.
To address this hypothesis, I developed an innovative fluxomics approach for analyzing whole-embryo metabolism, combining metabolomics, transcriptomic, and real-time bioenergetics measurements in two different embryonic cleavage pattern models: ascidians and zebrafish. By combining the Heisenberg group's expertise in biomechanics and my expertise in metabolism, I will follow three main lines of research based on the whole-embryo fluxomics data: (1) Characterizing the spatiotemporal metabolic activity in the cleaving embryo; (2) analyzing the function of specific metabolic elements in cytoskeleton regulation during cleavages; and (3) determining the extrinsic factors (temperature and oxygen levels) affecting the mechano-metabolic reactions during cleavages. I expect these findings to provide insight into mechano-metabolic mechanisms that will advance our understanding of embryonic development and shed light on disease-related processes where metabolism and cell division are highly interconnected, such as cancer.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinador
3400 Klosterneuburg
Austria