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

项目摘要/摘要 对微生物的研究在很大程度上是在自由漂浮(浮游)培养中进行的；然而， 大多数微生物对环境和医疗的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。生物膜是大多数细菌的主要生长状态 生物和非生物表面的微生物。 我的实验室研究计划的首要目标是了解 微生物群落。我们有兴趣研究转录网络是如何支持这一调控的。 在微生物群落发展过程中基因表达的变化。我们的首要目标是了解 这些社区是如何监管的，它们是如何建设的，它们的专门属性是如何阐述的，以及 以及这些类型的行为是如何演变的。我们采用系统生物学的方法来解决 这些生物学问题以及探索单一物种和多物种的微生物群落。 物种水平。我们研究的微生物类型包括真菌、细菌和古生菌，从 环境中发现的微生物区系中存在的共生体和机会性病原体 哺乳动物的宿主。我们的中心假设是，在使用的分子机制中应该有重叠 由微生物(甚至跨越王国)形成微生物群落。这一信息将提供新的 对工业和医疗环境中生物膜处理方法的见解，也许最重要的是，在 从一开始就阻止它们的形成。更广泛地说，这项工作也可能有助于揭示 在较新进化的生物体中的多细胞。

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.