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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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This week's CMDI seminar will be presented by Katie MacGillivray from the Ratcliff and Hammer groups.
The talk will take place at 3PM this Friday, September 25th. Please use the following bluejeans link: https://bluejeans.com/990364159
Katie's talk is entitled: Experimental evolution of resistance to Type VI secretion system attack
"Vibrio cholerae has several tools at its disposal to help it compete with eukaryotic predators and other bacteria in the environment and in hosts it infects. One of these tools is the Type VI secretion system (T6SS), which is found in around 25% of all Gram-negative bacteria. The T6SS has been described as a “nano-harpoon” that directly injects toxic cargo into adjacent cells resulting in lysis. The structure of the apparatus and the toxic cargo deployed have become well-understood in recent years, but less is understood regarding how other species can respond and defend against these attacks. We used experimental evolution to uncover possible mechanisms of T6SS resistance in Escherichia coli, exposing 8 replicate populations to 30 rounds (~700 generations) of co-culture with V. cholerae. Evolved populations have ~100-fold increased survival to T6SS attack, with multiple parallel genetic adaptations, including 6 of 8 populations gaining unique mutations in the same gene. This work provides some of the first insights into evolutionarily-favorable mechanisms that dramatically improve survival against T6SS attack."
