Opis projektu
Badanie związku pomiędzy trwałością laktazy a mikrobami w kulturach mleczarskich
Geneza i rola mleczarstwa we wczesnych społecznościach ludzkich są słabo poznane. Tylko nieliczne populacje ludzi mogą trawić laktozę zawartą w mleku do wieku dorosłego (trwałość laktazy, ang. lactase persistence, LP), podczas gdy większość dorosłych ludzi ma obniżoną zdolność do trawienia tego cukru mlecznego. LP uznano za klasyczny przykład koewolucji genów z kulturą. Jednak związek między LP a fenotypami nietolerancji laktozy jest zmienny, a coraz więcej dowodów wskazuje na rolę mikrobów w prehistorycznych gospodarkach mleczarskich. Skupiając się na Mongolii, kraju, którego dieta w dużej mierze składa się z produktów mlecznych, zespół finansowanego ze środków UE projektu DAIRYCULTURES zastosuje innowacyjne techniki genomiczne w celu zidentyfikowania pochodzenia lokalnych zwierząt mlecznych i zbadania hipotez dotyczących związku między mikrobiomem jelitowym, trawieniem laktozy i genotypami LP.
Cel
Summary: Dairy products are nutritional resources of global economic importance, and their emergence in prehistory marks a major shift in human dietary ecology. However, basic questions regarding the origins and role of dairying in early human societies remain poorly understood. It is now known that adult hypolactasia (the inability to digest milk sugar) is an ancestral human trait, and that relatively few human populations have genetic variants that allow continued milk digestion into adulthood, a trait known as lactase persistence (LP). The rise of LP has been regarded as a classic example of gene-culture evolution; however, the association between LP and lactose intolerance phenotypes is variable, and LP genotypes do not consistently appear in the archaeological record until more than 5,000 years after the origins of dairying. This has left archaeologists with a puzzling problem, a “milk paradox” regarding how and why ancient peoples developed milk into a dietary resource, how the Bronze Age steppe migrations contributed to the spread of dairying across Eurasia, and what other factors besides LP may have been involved this process. There is now a growing body of evidence that microbes have played important, yet overlooked, roles in the successful establishment of prehistoric dairying economies. This study seeks to answer fundamental questions about the prehistory of dairying by focusing on Mongolia, a country where as much as 80% of the rural diet derives from dairy products, and where dairying has been practiced for more than 3,500 years. Specifically, cutting-edge genomics techniques will be used to identify the origins of Mongolian dairy livestock, proteomics techniques will be used to refine methods for detecting milk proteins in archaeological Mongolian dental calculus, and metagenomics techniques will be used to test hypotheses regarding the relationship between the gut microbiome, lactose digestion, and LP genotypes in nomadic Mongolian dairy herders.
Dziedzina nauki
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryprehistory
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsproteomics
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedairy
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutrition
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
Program(-y)
Temat(-y)
System finansowania
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstytucja przyjmująca
80539 Munchen
Niemcy