Location: Children's Nutrition Research Center
2024 Annual Report
Objectives
The objective of the proposed research is to develop biomarkers of nutritional status as affected by nutrient content of foods produced under changing environmental conditions.
Approach
This will be accomplished through the approaches of mass spectroscopy of plasma constituents including nutrients, metabolites, or other compounds; development of new measurement technologies; or, mathematical approaches to collectively analyze patterns of nutrients in biological fluids. The proposed research will address Problem Statement 1A: Determine Agricultural Practices that Influence the Nutritional Status of Americans.
Progress Report
Children's Nutrition Research Center scientists are collaborating with the Texas A&M AgriLife, Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture to conduct a broad range of research activities that addresses the critical intersection of production agriculture with human, environmental, and economic health outcomes. Advancing the food and agriculture system synergy will improve diets and health outcomes, reduce diet-related health care costs, improve quality of life, limit the environmental impact of the agriculture system, and reduce food waste while increasing food production to levels needed to nourish the estimated more than 9 billion people on earth by 2050.
Personnel participated in the hiring process for new ARS scientists. The first federal scientist hire started in April 2023, based in College Station, Texas and conducts research focusing on responsive agriculture. This ARS scientist attended the American Society for Plant Biologists meeting and presented research focused on: high anthocyanin accumulation in Zea mays (corn). 2) This ARS scientist also attended the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and presented research on the genetics of heavy metal tolerant legumes, and heavy metal tolerant symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
During the year, collaborations with Texas A&M University have been formed as well as new relationships with ARS scientists at the Children's Nutrition Research Center to analyze antioxidant and nutrient content in a breeding population of corn grown in Texas, and ARS scientists in Lubbock, Texas to identify genes responsible for higher micronutrient accumulation grains of sorghum, which is also grown widely in Texas. Several experiments are currently underway and planning for experiments during the growing season are in the planning stages. We have already generated data for a manuscript quantifying anthocyanin metabolites in purple corn, and corresponding gene expression, in collaboration with Texas A&M and ARS scientists.
We recruited and hired an additional ARS research scientist who joined the Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture and the Children's Nutrition Research Center in June. We also recruited and selected a new ARS Research Leader to be located in the Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture on the Texas A&M campus. The new Research Leader is expected to join in September. Additional ARS support staff were hired which includes a new Financial Technician and an Administrative Support Assistant.
Accomplishments
Review Publications
Bhat, A., Sharma, R., Desigan, K., Clear, M., Mishra, A., Bowers, R., Epstein, B., Tiffin, P., Pueyo, J., Paape, T.D. 2023. Local adaptation to mercury stress in nitrogen fixing rhizobia is driven by horizontal gene transfer, copy number, and enhanced gene expression. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.27.573466.
Bhat, A., Sharma, R., Desigan, K., Lucas, M., Mishra, A., Bowers, R., Woyke, T., Epstein, B., Tiffin, P., Pueyo, J.J., Paape, T.D. 2024. Horizontal gene transfer of the Mer operon is associated with large effects on the transcriptome and increased tolerance to mercury in nitrogen-fixing bacteria. BMC Microbiology. 24. Article 247.