Project properties

Title Role of bacterial interactions in the evolution of antibiotic resistance
Group Genetics, Laboratory of
Project type thesis
Credits 24-36
Supervisor(s) Marjon de Vos, Mark Zwart, Andy Farr, Arjan de Visser
Examiner(s) Arjan de Visser
Contact info arjan.devisser@wur.nl
Begin date 2020/01/01
End date 2024/01/01
Description Bacterial extracellular products affect not only the fitness of the producer itself, but may also affect the fitness of other cells in the population. We study these social effects using the antibiotic-degrading enzyme TEM-1 beta-lactamase as a model system. In addition, we study the influence of social interactions in small bacterial consortia, both natural consortia from urinary tract infections, and synthetic consortia. Among others, these interactions will be studied using millifluidic technology, which allows the growth and selection of small bacterial populations in thousands of water droplets in oil.
Used skills Basic molecular techniques (PCR, cloning and expression in bacterial hosts, restriction and sequence analyses), in vitro and in vivo evolution protocols, MIC assays, bioinformatics and statistical analysis to interpret evolved enzymes; and millifluidic technology where bacteria grow and evolve in 1000s of small (~100 nL) droplets.
Requirements Basic molecular techniques, such as PCR, cloning of single genes, restriction and sequence analysis, and background in evolutionary and ecological theory.