Project:

Antagonistic interactions shape evolution

Predators and pathogens shape species evolution, while host immune system, tissue niche and therapeutics shape both pathogens and cancer evolution within patients. How hosts evolve to defend against parasites shapes basic cell biology, the biodiversity of the natural world around us, and the molecular paths available for adaptation under other selective pressures. 

This project aims to visualize how host factors in the budding yeast nucleus interact with a naturally-occurring parasitic plasmid: the 2µ. This work will use recent microscopy advances, and builds new tools to understand how these physical interactions shape host physiology and may be influencing host evolution. Many proteins in the yeast nucleus perform host-essential roles and at the same time are stolen by the parasitic 2µ plasmid for plasmid survival. In other cases, proteins fulfil host-protective functions against the plasmid through as-of-yet unclear mechanisms. In this collaborative project, expansion microscopy-based experiments and live cell imaging is used to visualize how host and plasmid components interact within the nucleus. Through observing host-plasmid interactions in live cells and in fixed expansion-microscopy samples, in both plasmid-permissive and -restrictive hosts, we will better understand how host/parasite interact and shape one another’s cell biology at the molecular level. 

This work builds on the Sherlock lab’s expertise in genomics and the Dey lab’s expertise in nuclear biology and microscopy techniques.

This project is supported by an Exchange Grant, awarded to Michelle Hays

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Interested in finding out more about the bacterial projects? Do you want to join our researchers in the the war on bugs? Get in touch, we would love to hear from you!