Primordial Germ Cells Environmentally-driven fate in Zebrafish

In a global climate change scenario with pieces of evidence of abiotic factor changes and the increase of pollutants due to anthropogenic activities, we are starting to accumulate evidence of its effects on animal welfare and physiology.

One of these effects is changes in fish sex determination and differentiation processes due to alterations of abiotic and anthropogenic factors.

Among these factors, temperature is known to affect sex determination well before the gonads are differentiated, pointing towards an evident interplay between the genetic and environmental factors, even prior to gonad formation at the primordial germ cell (PGCs) stage. However, how temperature controls PGCs and final sex ratios fate is still unknown.

In this project, I aim to dissect when and how temperature is controlling the fate of PGCs.

Hence, driving the future sex ratio of the population since changes in sex ratios could put at risk future food production and species conservation.

To that extent, I propose combining state-of-the-art imaging, genomic, and epigenetic technologies to analyse PGCs transcriptomic and epigenetic landscapes of zebrafish under thermal stress.

This project capitalises on combining my background in epigenetics and bioinformatic fields with extensive expertise in developmental biology, fish sex determination and differentiation and spatial transcriptomics of the host labs.

This multidisciplinary proposal will explain how temperature increases as predicted on a climate change scenario modulates PGCs fate and identity.

These results will significantly advance the field of epigenetics and developmental biology and will impact future food production and species conservation.

Finally, the knowledge and skills gained from this project will allow me to become an independent researcher and hopefully enable me to establish my own line of research in Regulatory Genomics applied to aquaculture and marine conservation.