MSU MGI

This week's MGI Research Seminar was presented by Asst. Prof. Meghan Milbrath of MSU's dept. of entomology. She spoke about bacterial brood diseases in honey bees. Thank you, Dr. Milbrath!

Letters AI in front of a black and green computer chip design.

MGI Professor Christoph Adami (@chrisadami.bsky.social) has a new article out in npj Complexity which addresses the question of whether we can use AI to promote a more cooperative society.

Read more here: tinyurl.com/3cjxujmm

A mixture of evolved bacterial colonies carrying fluorescent gene accordions on an agar plate. Individual colonies vary in brightness, reflecting differences in YFP copy number—brighter colonies carry higher copy numbers.

To recreate this process in the lab, he uses experimental evolution with synthetic gene accordions made of fluorescent proteins. This approach will allow him to identify the forces that maintain these systems and how they allow microbes to adapt to changing environments.

This is the mechanism for how gene accordions allow for quick gene diversification and adaptation.

E. coli populations evolved through repeated fluorescence-based cell sorting to increase YFP copy number. Brighter cultures indicate higher average copy number in a population.

Tyler de Jong spoke about his work studying gene accordions—systems used by microbes to quickly change and diversify their genes by expanding and shrinking repeated DNA segments through recombination.

By watching evolution happen in laboratory bacterial populations, we can understand how these rearrangements happen on a molecular level, what forces prevent certain configurations of the chromosome, and how they impact evolutionary outcomes.

In this picture, we can see Ira doing one of the daily transfers for the Long-Term Evolution Experiment. Every day, a researcher transfers bacteria from an old culture flask to a new culture flask to keep the bacteria growing and evolving.

Ira Zibbu described her talk, entitled "Chromosomal Rearrangements Over 75,000 Generations of a Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli," by saying:

One way that bacteria evolve new traits is by altering the organization of genes on their chromosome.

Two individuals introduced as this week's WiPS speakers, IRA ZIBBU and TYLER DE JONG, both from the Barrick lab.

Ira Zibbu (@coolscootre.bsky.social) and Tyler de Jong are MGI graduate students working in the Barrick Lab. Both of them do research related to the Long-Term Evolution Experiment - and they both presented Work in Progress seminars this week.

Happy Birthday, Long-Term Evolution Experiment!!!

Happy 38th birthday to the #LTEE!
#BOTD in 1988.
Keep on evolving!

#science #evolution #microbiology

This week's MGI seminar was a promotion seminar given by Dr. Kaz Kashefi. His talk was entitled, "Life at the Limits: Extremophiles as a Gateway to Student-Drive Scientific Discovery." Thank you for a great talk, Dr. Kashefi!

Understanding these relationships can help scientists design more effective biological products—tools that support crops in real-world conditions and help farmers adapt to the challenges of climate change.

Arabidopsis plants grow in a small container.

Chen researches Arabidopsis thaliana plants that are missing key genes involved in salicylic acid, a key immune signal. She has found that changes in plant immunity can alter plant performance & the makeup of their microbial partners.

Sydney Chen smiles at the camera. She is holding a vertical plate assay.

Sydney Chen, an MGI graduate student in the Lebeis Lab, gave the second Work in Progress seminar this week. Her research explores how a plant’s immune system shapes the tiny microbial communities that live inside its roots.

The Xi Lab as depicted in a series of hand-drawn cartoons.

Specifically, Wen discussed the tissue distribution of Wolbachia, a cytoplasmic incompatibility and Plasmodium blocking induced by the Wolbachia, and the heat tolerance of these mosquitoes.

This series of lab portraits was done by one of Wen's undergrad assistants.

Han Wen is an MGI doctoral candidate in Dr. Zhiyong Xi's lab who gave one of this week's Work in Progress seminars. Wen discussed his work establishing a line of Wolbachia-infected Anopheles stephensi, a type of mosquito.

This image shows the two screens at the front of a large conference room. One has slides for a talk, and the other is a woman's face.

This week's MGI Research Seminar was given - virtually, no less - by Dr. Jannell Bazurto of the Univ. of Minnesota. She spoke about "Formaldehyde Homeostasis: Do or Die." Thank you for a fantastic talk!

MGI Asst Prof Zachary Blount @zdblount.bsky.social is giving a talk in celebration of Darwin Day TONIGHT at 7 pm called "Today’s Junk, Tomorrow’s Triumph: Lessons on Evolutionary Contingency, Inertia, and Innovation from the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with E. coli."

This slide, from Nakagawa's talk, shows how traditional japanese indigo dye is made.

She is currently training with Dr. Annette Rowe, learning how to use electrochemical techniques to enrich these alkali-loving microbes, and she plans to apply this research to engineer more high-powered microbial fuel cells.

Kasumi Nakagawa stands next to one of her experiments.

Kasumi Nakagawa is a visiting researcher in the Rowe Lab @electromicrowe.bsky.social who gave a Work in Progress seminar this week.

Nakagawa studies electricity-producing bacteria derived from traditional Japanese indigo (Aizome) vats.

A successful genetic engineering experiment as seen by fluorescent genes expressed by bacterial colonies.

The long-term evolution experiment numbers indicating the number of generations of e.coli that have been tracked.

By inserting unique DNA “barcodes,” and by tracking these barcodes after environmental and/or DNA changes, he can see which lineages thrive or decline and how chance, history, and environment shape their evolution.

Picture of Pranesh Rao operating a pipetting robot.

Pranesh Rao, an MGI doctoral student in the Barrick Lab, presented a Work in Progress seminar today.

Rao's project aims to study the long-term E. coli evolution experiment to link specific DNA changes to how well bacteria grow.

The pergola in the courtyard outside BPS is covered in snow.

The front of BPS with snow blurring the image.

The sculpture outside the BPS entrance is surrounded by snow and snowy footprints. As seen from the sixth floor stairwell looking down at it.

The courtyard outside BPS is covered in snow.

BPS is a winter wonderland today!

Brain cells treated with gut-derived metabolites.

Brain cells in enriched media.

Graphs showing characteristics of brain-infiltrating macrophage that he discussed during his talk.

In these pictures, we see brain cells treated with gut-derived metabolites, brain cells in enriched media, and the last slide shows some characteristics of brain-infiltrating macrophage that he discussed during his talk.

Abdul-Halim Osman smiles at the camera. He is wearing a lab coat.

Abdul-Halim Osman of the Giri Lab at Henry Ford Health is studying how phenylalanine and gut microbes shape immune responses that ultimately affect the brain in diseases like multiple sclerosis. He presented his work at this week's Work in Progress Seminar.

This raw western blot image shows that the proteins that Chris is studying were found in the samples, as they predicted.

This work is important because uncovering the function of these novel genes could help illuminate this unusual form of metabolism.

This is the typical setup for the electrochemical experiments they do to study bacterial electron uptake.

It's unknown how S. oneidensis is able to transfer these electrons to its electron transport chain to produce energy, but with the help of a large genetic screen, they found a few previously unstudied genes that may be involved.

This agar plate contains colonies of a knockout mutant strain for one of the genes Chris is studying.

His work focuses on the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis and its unique ability to uptake electrons from an external source, such as an electrode, & use them for energy production.

Chris Chavtur smiles at the camera.

MGI grad student Chris Chavtur (@crchavtur97.bsky.social) of the Rowe Lab (@electromicrowe.bsky.social) gave one of this week's Work in Progress seminars.

MGI graduate student Ira Zibbu of the Barrick Lab will be speaking tonight at Biology on Tap. The talk is open to the public - see details below!