The host as a selective pressure: interactions of immunity, AMR, and persistence

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The goal of this project is to understand how the selection imposed by host immune responses changes bacterial biology. We will infect fruit flies with relatively mild bacterial pathogens and track phenotypic and genotypic change in infecting bacteria. We will compare bacteria evolved in wild-type hosts to those evolved in hosts lacking specific aspects of immune function. We will then cross-correlate the changes we observe in pathogenic activity with changes in other related phenotypes (persister formation, antimicrobial resistance) to develop an understanding of how the interaction with non-human hosts can change fundamental aspects of microbial biology. This is of particular interest given the strong reliance of insect immune responses on antimicrobial peptides and the potential for cross-resistance between antimicrobial peptides and other drugs of interest.