UD Microbial Systems Symposium
2018
February 10, 2018
8:30 AM Breakfast and Poster set up
9:00 AM Welcome, opening remarks by Dr. Robin Morgan, Interim Provost of UD
Oral Session I: Cell and Molecular - Moderator Jennifer Biddle
9:30 AM Nathan D. McDonald, E. Fidelma Boyd
“Delicious but Dangerous: Unique sugars biosynthesized by bacteria”
Nonulosonic acids are a family of sugars that are ubiquitous in nature. In humans these sugars are essential for healthy function and dysregulation of their biosynthesis results in a variety of diseases. Many bacteria will also incorporate nonulosonic acids into several surface structures. These sugars are important for physiological functions such as biofilm formation, motility, antibiotic resistance, and pathogenesis. Here we characterize the diversity of nonulosonic acids produced by the marine pathogen Vibrio vulnificus, uncovering unique functionalities, as well as investigate the significance in the physiology and survival of bacterium.
9:45 AM Derrick C. Scott
“Utilizing Next Generation Sequencing to Generate Bacterial Genomic Sequences for Evolutionary Analysis”
So you want to do evolution studies on microbes but you need to sequence new strains to begin your work but you don't know where to start? You're in luck! This talk will walk you through the blueprint on which hardware technologies and software to use to achieve your goals.
10:00 AM Nicholas Egan, Mark S. Parcells
“Role of Polycomb Repressive Complex Proteins in Maintaining Viral Latency of Marek's Disease Virus (MDV)”
Marek's Disease Virus (MDV) is an avian alpha-herpes virus that infects chickens causing T-cell lymphomagenesis. It does this by establishing latency and transforming CD4+ T-cells causing tumor formation to occur within the host. A specific viral oncoprotein (Meq) and splice variants of this protein have been associated with latency and therefore T-cell transformation. Further, these splice variant proteins are interacting with a host Polycomb Repressive Complex (PRC) protein (Bmi-1). I am looking to characterize the interactions between the viral oncoproteins and the host PRC proteins focusing on the role that they play in maintaining viral latency of MDV.
10:15 AM Colleen Pike, Ramona Neunuebel
“Legionella effector RavD binds host phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate and contributes to lysosomal avoidance”
Intracellular pathogens employ diverse and powerful strategies to combat host cells defenses. The Gram-negative bacterium, Legionella pneumophila, acts as a master of disguise, camouflaging the phagosome it’s contained in to resemble an ER-like compartment concurrently with evading lysosomal degradation within human macrophages. This vacuole remodeling is paramount for intracellular survival of L. pneumophila, yet the effector proteins responsible for derailing phagosome maturation remain largely unknown. Here we tell the story of how the L. pneumophila effector protein, RavD, contributes to L. pneumophila infection by impeding fusion of the bacterium-containing vacuole with host lysosomes.
10:30 AM Coffee Break
11:00 AM Poster session 1: Odd numbers
12:00 PM Lunch
1:00 PM Keynote Elizabeth Grice
“The skin microbiome and roles in health, inflammation, and wound healing”
The skin is our primary barrier to the external environment, but is also colonized by communities of micro-organisms that have important functions in barrier integrity, modulating defense responses, and protection against pathogens. The Grice lab uses multi-disciplinary approaches to integrate observations and associations from the clinic into functional studies using in vitro and in vivo systems at the bench. Our goal is to understand the complex networks of the skin microbiome and how they interact with host cells as a foundation for therapeutic manipulation and microbiome engineering for the treatment of inflammatory and non-healing skin conditions.
2:00 PM Coffee Break
Oral Session 2: Ecology and Evolution - Moderator Amy Biddle
2:15 PM Justin Blair, Amy Biddle
“Capture Mechanisms of Duddingtonia flagrans on Cyathostomin Larvae”
Parasitic nematodes known as small strongyles or cyathostomins commonly infect equine populations across the globe, and are becoming increasingly resistant to traditional drug treatments. A type of predatory fungus that entraps and consumes nematodes has been shown to have great promise as a biological control agent in parasitic nematode populations in grazing animals, particularly sheep. This study seeks to examine the effects of the fungus, Duddingtonia flagrans, on the larval stages of equine small strongyles, first observing behavioral patterns and then looking for any differential effects of the fungus on the many species of small strongyles.
2:30 PM Kaliopi Bousses, Jennifer Biddle
“Microbial succession in a sulfur-oxidizing mat”
The majority of the dark ocean floor is not favorable for life to flourish. However, certain areas of the ocean bed, including hydrothermal vents, cold seeps and even whale falls are energy-rich systems that allow a wide group of microorganisms to thrive and grow, thus contributing to the food chain in these ecosystems. Growing in close association with each other, these microbes form mats to utilize sulfur compounds, methane, or ammonium to meet their energetic needs. Little is known about the origin of these mat types and how different community members may contribute to the successional change of a mat. In this study, a microbial mat growing on a pork bone was sampled. Amplicon and metagenomic analyses were used to show how the chemosynthetic community and the metabolic potential of its members changed over the course of a month.
2:45 PM Michael J. Pavia, Pauline Henri, Jennifer Macalady, Shawn Polson, Clara Chan
“Colonization and S(0) Mineralization of Sulfur Oxidizing Biofilms in the Frasassi Cave System”
Sulfur cycling in the Frasassi cave is exclusively sustained by sulfur oxidizing chemolithotrophic microbes. These microbes form conspicuous white biofilms that have been shown to contain 20% to 80% elemental sulfur (S(0)) by mass. Using a metatranscriptomics approach we have been able to provide insight into the S(0)-producing pathways, as well as, the ecological roles of the dominant organisms.
3:00 PM Poster session 2: Even numbers
4:00 PM Reception, ends at 6:00PM
4:30 PM Awards announced, closing remarks
Please remove posters by 6PM
We would like to acknowledge the financial support of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Plant and Soil Sciences, Animal and Food Sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences (Biology), the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, the College of Engineering (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering) and DENIN. We owe a debt of gratitude to Grace Wisser, who assisted in preparing for the symposium, and Betty Cowgill, who helped today. We also thank Dr. Julie Maresca for her past efforts on the symposium, which greatly enabled this year’s activities.
Posters:
Number / Title / Presenter / Research Group1 / Cloning and expression of the iron oxidase Cyc2 in Shewanella oneidensis / Jessica L. Keffer / Clara S. Chan
2 / Community composition and mercury methylation capacity in a permanently stratified meromictic lake / Kristin Yoshimura / Jennifer Biddle
3 / Characterizing the Respiratory Microbiome of a Commercial Broiler Flock / Monique Robinson / Calvin Keeler
4 / Innate Immune Responses in Lettuce to Foliar Applied Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes / Nicholas Johnson / Harsh Bais Kali Kniel
5 / Identifying Hindgut Microbes in Ctenochaetus striatus and Calotomus spinidens: Comparing Community Composition, Function, and Identifying Genomes Through Metagenomics / Cassandra Harris / Jennifer Biddle
6 / CRISPR-Cas systems show novel variant types and are carried on mobile genetic elements in many bacterial species. / Daniel P. Morreale / E. Fidelma Boyd
7 / Synthesis and Screening of Muramyl Dipeptide (MDP) Derivatives via Microarray / Junhui Zhou / Catherine Leimkuhler Grimes
8 / The oyster microbiome: Interrelationships among host genotype, microbiome composition, and disease resistance in Crassostrea virginica / Amanda Zahorik / Eric Wommack
9 / Making sense of unclassified viral proteins through ORF network analysis / Zachary D. Schreiber / Eric Wommack
10 / Carbohydrate metabolism systems present in a Vibrio parahaemolyticus archipelago that mark the emergence of outbreak strains / Abish Regmi / E. Fidelma Boyd
11 / G2P in VoM: Linking Genome Data to Phenome Information in Viruses of Microbes through Next Generation Sequencing and Microfluidics / Lingyi Wu / Eric Wommack
12 / Ribonucleotide reductase provides insight into marine virioplankton communities / AO Harrison / Eric Wommack
13 / Regulation of compatible solute biosynthesis in the osmotic stress response of Vibrio parahaemolyticus / GS Gregory / E. Fidelma Boyd
14 / Identification of a novel function and host target of the Legionella pneumophila effector AnkX / Rebecca R. Noll / Ramona Neunuebel
15 / The Concrete Microbiome and Potential Bioindicators of Alkali-Silica Reaction Damage / Erik Anders Kiledal / Julia Maresca
16 / Characterization of Exosomes during Marek's Disease Virus Pathogenesis and Vaccination / Sabari Nath Neerukonda / Mark Parcells
17 / Immunometabolic Influences of S. enteritidis and S. heidelberg in HD-11 Macrophages / Famatta Perry / Ryan Arsenault
18 / Bacteriophage roles in hydrothermal vent iron mats: a metagenomic analysis / Rebecca Vandzura / Eric Wommack
19 / Manipulation of the endocytic trafficking pathways by the Legionella pneumophila effector protein AnkX / Barbara Romero / Ramona Neunuebel
20 / Investigating the role of Endocytic Recycling pathways during Legionella pneumophila infection / Sam Allgood / Ramona Neunuebel
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