Host-Microbe Biology

Bacterial pathogens have evolved extensive signaling pathways to translate environmental signals into changes in gene expression. While Crp has long been appreciated for its role in regulating metabolism of carbon sources in many bacterial species, transcriptional profiling has revealed that this protein regulates many other aspects of bacterial physiology. The plague pathogen...

In general, the genomes of intracellular bacterial symbionts are reduced compared to those of free-living relatives and lack many key regulatory genes. Many of these reduced genomes belong to obligate mutualists of insects that feed on a diet that is deficient in essential nutrients, such as essential amino acids. It is unclear if these symbionts respond with their host to changes in insect diet, because of their reduced regulatory...

Although bacteria have been studied in infection for over 100 years, the majority of these studies have utilized laboratory and animal models that often have unknown relevance to the human infections they are meant to represent. A primary challenge has been to assess bacterial physiology in the human host. To address this challenge, we performed transcriptomics of S. aureus...

Human-associated bacteria are thought to encode bioactive small molecules and proteins that play an intimate role in human health and disease. Here, we report on the creation and functional screening of a multigenomic library constructed using genomic DNA from 116 bacteria found at diverse sites across the human body. Individual clones were screened for genes capable of conferring NF-κB-inducing activity to...