Virginia Research Day 2022

Medical Student Research Biomedical

16 Antibacterials From Pink Bacteria Living In Household Sinks

Tuan Vo; Nga Ying Eng; Amy T. Ma; Joris Beld Corresponding author: tvo@vt.vcom.edu

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Drexel University College of Medicine

against the bacterial ESKAPE pathogens. Our goals are to identify novel natural products from bacteria that thrive in the sink and isolate new molecules with potent antibiotic activity for therapeutic use.For the first time, 30% of responding residents were able to access recorded didactic sessions. Based on this information, TEAMs® sessions should probably be continued, perhaps in combination with post pandemic live sessions. TEAMs can provide recorded sessions. Efforts should be made to improve presenter interactions with online residents and to make sessions’ audio more uniform.

were collected from swabs of a household shower drain. Five species of bacteria were isolated, including Methylobacterium, Sphingomonas, and Brevundimonas. All five species are novel discoveries. Of the five species of bacteria identified, Methylobacterium was chosen for further studies based on a crude extract that was able to kill Escherichia coli in a bioassay. Next, we cultured Methylobacterium at large scale for natural product isolation and characterization. We used a bioassay guided approach, in which we screen the fractions directly against E. coli. Mass spectrometry will be used to identify the natural products. Some fractions also showed antifungal activity, which we will pursue in the future. Further studies involve testing of isolated molecules

With increasing antibiotics resistance, there is a strong need for the discovery of new antibiotics. The majority of antibiotics are natural products produced by fungi or bacteria. In this study, we broaden the scope of bioprospecting to untapped urban environments for novel antibiotic-producing bacteria. We hypothesize that the vast biosynthetic diversity and unique biosynthetic gene composition makes these bacteria great potential candidates for new natural product discovery. We focus here on a unique microbiome that is found world-wide in showers and bathroom sinks and is often described as “pink in the sink”. We hypothesize that these bacteria can thrive in this unique environment because they produce antibiotics that eliminate competing bacteria. Samples

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