CAREER: Corticosteroid Binding Globulins in the Vertebrate Stress Response: Integrating Cellular, Plasma, and Organismal Studies

University Of Montana, Missoula MT

Investigators

Abstract

The glucocorticoid hormone-driven stress response is a potent modulator of physiology and behavior across the animal kingdom. This stress response is regulated at many levels, demonstrating specificity to the stressor, the environmental context, and the physiological condition of the organism. How can an organism facilitate such fine control over what was historically presumed to be a generalized response to any noxious stressor? Over the last decade binding proteins have emerged as one of the central integrators of the endocrine regulatory axis. Corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) is a significant regulator of the stress response, altering the potency and tissue specificity of corticosteroid action depending on environmental and physiological conditions. Nevertheless, the mechanism by which CBG alters physiological function is under dispute. This research will investigate the role of CBG in mediating the stress response in white-crowned sparrows by incorporating studies from the cellular to the ecological level. The availability of CBG in plasma, tissues, and whole birds will be altered and the physiological and behavioral responses to exogenous corticosterone will be monitored. Such an approach will evaluate the relative importance of tissue versus plasma CBG in orchestrating the organismal response to stress. This research will be extended to ecologically relevant organismal studies to determine how CBG is involved in mediating the stress response in wild populations of birds. This project incorporates undergraduate internships with integration of research and teaching as their main focus. These undergraduate biology and science education majors will be trained in field research techniques and ideas, while learning how to develop lesson plans for high school students. In mid-May, the students will travel with the PI to Lee Vining, California for the 6-week field season. During that time they will complete the field research outlined in the grant, while also giving their prepared lessons at the local high school one day each week. The entire internship will culminate with presentation of the field-collected data at the University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research. These experiences strengthen the education majors' knowledge of the scientific process, and forge an understanding and commitment to developing authentic research experiences for students in their future science classrooms. For the biology undergraduates, these experiences will foster positive experiences with educational settings and encourage future relationships with secondary science classrooms. This program will promote active participation in both the scientific process and learning the nature of science; it will improve the interns' potential as future teachers of science.