Supervisors: David Lusseau, Dr Alex Douglas, Dr Dorian Houser (also here)
Project Description:
Dolphins and whales are morbidly obese yet live long and healthy lives. They have a specialised form of white adipose tissue, blubber, which evolved for the primary purposes of thermoregulation and energy storage. In terrestrial mammals, adipose tissue plays a key physiological and signalling role in energy metabolism and consequently energy allocation to life functions such as survival and reproduction. Adipose plays a more complex role in the physiology of cetaceans, and recent phylogenomic work shows that we cannot expect adipose signalling to function in the same manner as in terrestrial mammals despite signals being similar (Ball et al. 2017). Plasma profiling also show that the response of dolphins to fasting differ from their terrestrial counterparts (Venn-Watson et al. 2011). Fasting dolphins display similar insulin-resistance profile we find in type 2 diabetes humans. Cetaceans therefore open the possibility to explore an alternative animal model. Dolphins can maintain a healthy phenotype despite carrying a large adipose deposit and therefore understanding the role of adipose signalling in energy metabolism in this species has the potential to provide exciting opportunities to understand metabolic syndromes associated with obesity.
In this project we will determine changes in transcriptomic profile of blubber during fasting using individuals from a unique managed population of bottlenose dolphins, with known pedigrees, in a controlled environment hosted by the National Marine Mammal Foundation (USA). During this project the candidate will investigate the genomic association with fasting response as well as adipose transcriptional changes in response to fasting.
In addition to molecular observations of the adipose biology, this study will integrate genomic and transcriptomic information to phenotypic and behavioural data collected on the same individuals. The aim will be to integrate this information obtained at different biological scales in order to understand how adipose signalling influences other organs to affect energy metabolism and ultimately life function decisions.
References:
Ball et al. 2017. J. Comp Phys B. 187 : 235-252
Venn-Watson et al. 2011 Gen. & Comp. Endo. 170: 193-199
If you want to apply for this project, please go to this link.
