Research

Bacterial evolution and the associated consequences

Salmonella infection mediated pathogenies and associated immunological outcomes. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a Gram-negative bacterium that infects many hosts, including amoeba, invertebrates, humans, and plants. S. Typhi is a human-specific serovar causing typhoid fever.

At 2i-lab, we examine how Salmonella infection can benefit the bug by adapting to the host environment. These evolutionary adaptations can help bacteria, and what mechanism makes the evolved bacteria more pathogenic than their non-adaptive counterparts. We found the bacteria have adapted themselves in different conditions like media or in vivo in the worm (C. elegans). The evolutionary adaptations have led them to become hyper infectious and more lethal to the host by overpowering and modulating their immune response. I am interested in further extrapolating the study to target using various other pathogens, including Listeria monocytogens, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, responsible for causing significant mortality and morbidity. The study can be a vital tool to understand the evolutionary mechanism and develop host-directed therapeutic strategies to combat the infection.

Insight of Salmonella mediated Infectobesity

Salmonella infection on obesity/diabetes and how bacterial infection can increase obesity and diabetes incidences using the worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) model. Diabetes causes around 1.5 million deaths which can further increase as high blood glucose contributes 2.2 million deaths, indicating a total of 3.7 million deaths related to high glucose levels annually.

Obesity and diabetes further increase the risk of various infections like Streptococcus infection etc., among the patient. Few reports describe the contrasting scenarios where microbe can lead to host obesity, especially viruses and the altered gut microbiota giving rise to the new field of infectobesity. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi/Typhimurium, an intracellular pathogen, is a causative agent of typhoid fever and gastroenteritis with significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. The C. elegans is a well-established model system used for host-pathogen interaction, including Salmonella, Pseudomonas, immune response and immune signalling, obesity and diabetes. This global obesity and diabetes scenario led me to think about Salmonella infection mediated obesity and its association with diabetes using C. elegans as a model.

Infection mediated developmental defects using the C. elegans model

Also, the current work going on in the lab is about studying the developmental defects due to Salmonella infection by using C. elegans as a model system. What severity of the defect Salmonella can cause, as this pathogen is known to infect pregnant women and neonates and lead to preterm birth or even foetal loss. We found that infection has a significant impact on the development of the worm in terms of egg morphology, hatching behaviour, different larval stage development, and even adulthood and gonadogenesis. We are looking out the mechanism of how Salmonella infection can cause these defects.

Salmonella infection is also able to cause the Dauer formation in the worm. We have found that the Salmonella infection can cause the dauer formation in C. elegans, and the phenotype persists up to the 5^th generation. Still, beyond that, the worm has adopted itself to eat the Salmonella as their regular food, and no more are responding against the pathogens.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse