Organisms Commons^™

Antifungal Defense Molecules From Bacterial Symbionts Of North American Trachymyrmex Ants, Georgia Scherer

CMC Senior Theses

Defensive symbioses, in which microbes provide molecular defenses for an animal host, hold great potential as untapped sources of therapeutically useful antibiotics. Fungus-growing ants use antifungal defenses from bacterial symbionts to suppress pathogenic fungi in their nests. Preliminary chemical investigations of symbiotic bacteria from this large family of ants have uncovered novel antifungal molecules with therapeutic potential, such as dentigerumycin and selvamicin.

In this study, the bacterial symbionts of North American Trachymyrmex fungus-growing ants are investigated for antifungal molecules. Plate-based bioassays using ecologically-relevant fungal pathogens confirmed that these bacteria have antifungal activity. In order to purify and identify the antifungal …

Chloroviruses Lure Hosts Through Long-Distance Chemical Signaling, David Dunigan, Maitham Ahmed Al-Sammak, Zeina Al-Ameeli, Irina Agarkova, John Delong, James L. Van Etten

James Van Etten Publications

Chloroviruses exist in aquatic systems around the planet where they infect certain eukaryotic green algae that are mutualistic endosymbionts in a variety of protists and metazoans. Natural chlorovirus populations are seasonally dynamic but the precise temporal changes in these populations and the mechanisms that underlie them have, heretofore, been unclear. We recently reported the novel concept that predator/prey-mediated virus activation regulates chlorovirus population dynamics, and in the current manuscript demonstrate virus packaged chemotactic modulation of prey behavior.

Viruses have not previously been reported to act as chemotactic/chemo-attractive agents. Rather, viruses as extracellular entities are generally viewed as non-metabolically active spore-like …

Repeat Elements Organise 3d Genome Structure And Mediate Transcription In The Filamentous Fungus Epichloë Festucae, David J. Winter, Austen R. D. Ganley, Carolyn A. Young, Ivan Liachko, Christopher L. Schardl, Pierre-Yves Dupont, Daniel Berry, Arvina Ram, Barry Scott, Murray P. Cox

Plant Pathology Faculty Publications

Structural features of genomes, including the three-dimensional arrangement of DNA in the nucleus, are increasingly seen as key contributors to the regulation of gene expression. However, studies on how genome structure and nuclear organisation influence transcription have so far been limited to a handful of model species. This narrow focus limits our ability to draw general conclusions about the ways in which three-dimensional structures are encoded, and to integrate information from three-dimensional data to address a broader gamut of biological questions. Here, we generate a complete and gapless genome sequence for the filamentous fungus, Epichloë festucae. We use Hi-C …