Our research questions and explores the utility provided by specialized metabolites to the producing organism. What do natural products do? The simplicity about this question belies its complexity. While the therapeutic activities of bacterial natural products have driven broad, activity-based discovery efforts, the benefits that the majority of secondary metabolites provide to producing bacteria have been obfuscated by their clinical applications and successes. Investigating the predatory capabilities of myxobacteria, we seek to determine the exchange of specialized metabolites amongst microbes during predation. Developing predator-prey pairings with ecologically relevant prey, we hope to learn how myxobacteria have evolved to combat bacterial behaviors pertinent to clinical concerns such as biofilm formation and persistence.

previous projects:

myxobacteria response to exogenous quorum signals & antibiotic discovery from myxobacteria exposed to prey quorum signals and phytohormones (R15 AI137996)

  • discovered horizontally-acquired, orphan acylhomoserine lactone synthase from Archangium gephyra

  • identified potential role of plant exudates in recruitment of predatory myxobacteria

  • reported that metabolism of Pseudomonas aeruginosa quinolone signals contributes to predatory specialization of Cystobacter ferrugineus

active projects:

isolation of myxobacteria from established rhizobiomes & prioritization of novel isolates (R01 GM149795)

  • ongoing isolation of myxobacteria from soils

  • developed method to prioritize which isolates are targeted for subsequent antibiotic discovery

  • happy to provide genome sequences, BGC data, and isolate stocks to any groups interested in specialized metabolite discovery from myxobacteria; all genome data will eventually be deposited and publicly available

expansion and application of synthetic biology tools for natural products discovery from myxobacteria (R01 GM149795)

  • utilize BGCs from isolated myxobacteria to develop heterologous hosts and discover novel metabolites

  • develop new plasmids for expression of BGCs in myxobacterial hosts

discovery and investigation of myxobacteria in stable, environmental consortia

  • sequence metagenomes from isolated consortia

  • determine interspecies small molecule signaling between myxobacteria and other consortia members

  • explore syntrophism in isolated consortia