Date of Award
2022
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
First Advisor
Master of Arts (MA)
Abstract
Microbial communities of bacteria, viruses, and fungi form complex interactions in nature. However, our understanding of these communities is limited to those that can be cultured in the lab. Enhanced culture methods have enabled the isolation of numerous fastidious species from urinary tract, definitively proving that the urinary tract of asymptomatic individuals is not sterile. In working with these isolates, our group has observed several instances in which a “purified” isolate actually harbors more than one species. We refer to these additional members as bacterial hitchhikers, a term previously used to describe similar occurrences in soil communities. I hypothesized that under a given culture condition, these bacterial hitchhikers would proliferate such that they could be isolated. Here, I focus on identifying biological hitchhikers in the urinary microbiota and investigating why these bacteria may hitchhike. First, I sequenced and identified the species of bacteria present in our samples using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Next, I observed frequently co-occurring species and assessed the fitness of strains grown in isolation as well as strains grown in co-culture with other species. Finally, I examined the metabolic profiles from bacterial genomes of a given participant’s urine sample. By understanding complex interactions in the urobiome, researchers will understand the challenges of manipulating a microbial community.
Recommended Citation
Baddoo, Genevieve, "Unveiling Bacterial Hitchhikers in the Urobiome" (2022). Master's Theses. 4454.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/4454
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2022 Genevieve Baddoo
