#30: The Effects of Simulated Microgravity Conditions on Mycobacterium Smegmatis Lysogen Stability — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

#30: The Effects of Simulated Microgravity Conditions on Mycobacterium Smegmatis Lysogen Stability

Name: Allison Pacocha
Major: Biology
Hometown: Muskego, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research

Name: Jessica Leo
Major: Biology
Hometown: Shawnee, KS
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research

Abstract

Bacteriophages Cerasum, GreaseLightnin, and SpikeBT were isolated at Carthage College using the bacterial host, Mycobacterium smegmatis. A bacteriophage is a virus that specifically infects bacteria and is being studied due to possible applications in phage therapy to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. The aforementioned bacteriophages were purified, characterized, and then further analyzed using an array of bioinformatic algorithms to annotate each of the genomes and confirm the genes and their functions. Electron microscopy and genomic DNA sequencing revealed that all three phages are lytic, Siphoviridae phages from a variety of clusters, including Clusters A1, F1, and P1. These phages are all temperate phages that are able to integrate into the host bacterial genome and form bacterial lysogens, which are immune to lysis.

The goals of this study were to measure the stability of bacterial lysogens containing integrated phages in the space flight environment as well as microgravity conditions simulated on earth, and to investigate how flight conditions may alter the rate of lytic induction in the phage life cycle. This experiment has implications in manned missions to Mars and the health of astronauts residing in the International Space Station in terms of maintaining bacterial levels inside the spacecraft and being able to successfully treat bacterial infections using phage therapy if needed. In this research, we have worked to identify lysogens for each of the phages and confirmed their identification via immunity assay protocols.

Over the course of the past year, this research has entailed observing the stability of GreaseLightnin, SpikeBT, and Cerasum lysogens in a variety of conditions, including space flight conditions using the HARV equipment at Carthage College to simulate micro gravitational forces. Based on HARV experiments, certain lysogens were sensitive to microgravity and had increased lysis in comparison to control samples grown in standard growth conditions. Our preliminary research may lead to more groundbreaking discoveries and experiments in phage biology–both on Earth and in Space– may impact the success of manned space flights in the future.

Poster file