Genetic regulation of inter- and intra-species microbial community formation

项目总结/摘要 微生物的研究主要是在自由漂浮（浮游）培养中进行的;然而， 大多数微生物的环境和医学影响取决于它们形成弹性表面的能力， 相关的微生物群落称为生物膜。生物膜是大多数生物的主要生长状态。 生物和非生物表面上的微生物。 我的实验室的研究计划的首要目标是了解分子和机械基础， 微生物群落我们感兴趣的是研究转录网络如何成为调控的基础 在微生物群落发育过程中基因表达的变化。我们的首要目标是了解 这些社区是如何管理的，它们是如何建立的，它们的特殊属性是如何阐述的， 以及这些类型的行为是如何演变的。我们采用系统生物学方法来解决 这些生物学问题，并探讨微生物群落在两个单一物种以及多， 物种水平。我们研究的微生物类型包括真菌、细菌和古生菌， 那些在环境中发现的细菌和存在于微生物群中的机会致病菌 哺乳动物宿主。我们的中心假设是，应该有重叠的分子机制， 通过微生物（甚至跨界）形成微生物群落。这些信息将提供新的 深入了解工业和医疗环境中处理生物膜的方法，也许最重要的是， 阻止它们的形成更广泛地说，这项工作也可能揭示了 在最近进化的生物体中的多细胞性。

Project Summary/Abstract Studies of microorganisms have largely been carried out in free-floating (planktonic) cultures; however, the environmental and medical impacts of most microorganisms depend on their abilities to form resilient surface- associated microbial communities called biofilms. Biofilms are the predominant growth state of most microorganisms on biotic and abiotic surfaces. The overarching goal of my lab’s research program is to understand the molecular and mechanistic bases of microbial communities. We are interested in investigating how transcriptional networks underlie the regulation of gene expression during the development of microbial communities. Our overarching goals are to understand how these communities are regulated, how they are built, how their specialized properties are elaborated and maintained, and how these types of behaviors have evolved. We take systems biology approaches to address these biological questions and explore microbial communities at both the single-species as well as multi- species levels. The types of microorganisms we study include fungi, bacteria, and archaea, and vary from those that are found in the environment to commensals and opportunistic pathogens existing in the microbiota of mammalian hosts. Our central hypothesis is that there should be overlap in the molecular mechanisms used by microorganisms (even across kingdoms) to form microbial communities. This information will provide new insights into ways of treating biofilms in industrial and medical settings and, perhaps most importantly, in preventing them from forming in the first place. More broadly, this work may also shed light on the evolution of multicellularity in more recently evolved organisms.