Invasion and Exclusion by Enterococcus faecalis in the Manduca gut community

为人类健康调节微生物群落需要了解群落对以下问题的反应： 入侵者，但人们对群落入侵的机制基础知之甚少。我们的目标是确定 在简单的入侵模式下，对烟草天蛾肠道群落的遗传基础进行了研究，并确定了影响 入侵宿主-群落复合体的元代谢组。 我们将确定参与入侵的基因，然后确定它们在竞争和合作中的作用。 群落及其对代谢组的影响，以产生关于信号分子作用的假设， 抗生素和营养素在社区互动中的作用。 该项目的创新源于代谢物谱的系统级分析与 还原论遗传分析，遗传学在社区一级表型中的应用， 微生物种群与活体动物的发光成像，以及尖端的化学技术。的 这项工作有可能通过提供一个基础来推动微生物群落生态学领域的发展， 在面对可能直接影响人类健康的干扰时，关于社区行为的模型。

Modulating microbial communities for human health requires understanding the response of communities to invaders, but little is known about the mechanistic bases for community invasion. Our goal is to determine the genetic basis for invasion in the simple model, the gut community of Manduca sexta, and determine the impact of invasion on the meta-metabolome of the host-community complex. We will identify genes involved in invasion and then determine their role in competition and cooperation in the community and their impact on the metabolome to generate hypotheses about the role of signal molecules, antibiotics, and nutrients in community interactions. The project's innovation derives from the marriage of systems-level analysis of metabolite profiles with reductionist genetic analysis, the application of genetics to community-level phenotypes, quantification of microbial populations with luminescence imaging in live animals, and cutting edge chemical technology. The work has the potential to advance the field of microbial community ecology by providing a basis for deriving models about community behavior in the face of perturbation that may apply directly to human health.