Jessie Uehling
Oregon State University, OR·Microbiology & Immunology
Soil microbes are in constant competition, and some survive by teaming up. Certain bacteria live inside fungal cells, a partnership called endosymbiosis.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Ecology & Evolution
Genetics
- Topics
endosymbiosis
bacterial-fungal interactions
holobiont
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Survey how often bacterium-fungus endosymbioses across Mucoromycota species evade engulfment by amoebae. Use comparative genomics to find shared and differing features in their genomes.
- Identify the strategies that normal and mutant Rhizopus-Ralstonia partnerships use to avoid being engulfed and killed by the soil amoeba Dictyostelium, by recording their interactions in the lab.
- Dissect the molecular mechanisms that let the bacterium Ralstonia live inside Rhizopus and alter the fungus's stress-related gene expression, using phenotypic, genomic and molecular tools.
- Test whether pressure from amoebae drives co-evolution of bacteria and fungi, and fungal resistance to engulfment by immune-like cells, linked to opportunistic virulence in mammals.
More about the research
The team has shown that one such pair makes a strong toxin together. The pair consists of the bacterium Ralstonia living inside the fungus Rhizopus, a member of the soil fungi group Mucoromycota. The toxin stops the soil amoeba Dictyostelium from engulfing and killing the fungus. The partnership also makes the fungus more virulent in animals. Amoebae resemble the phagocytes of the human immune system, the cells that engulf invaders as a first line of defense. This raises a question: did fighting off amoebae in soil prepare some fungi to evade our immune cells? Endosymbionts appear in about half of Rhizopus samples collected from patients.
Why it matters
Some Mucoromycota fungi, including Rhizopus, cause opportunistic infections in people whose immune cells do not work properly. Learning how soil fungi and their bacterial partners evolved ways to escape amoeba-like immune cells could help explain where these infections come from in nature and in humans. The work could also improve our understanding of immunity more broadly.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Debora Rodrigues
Clemson University, SC·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how metals and metalloids affect the diversity and transmission of fungal microbiomes, including endobacteria living inside fungi and exobacteria living outside, for both facultative and obligatory partners.
Madison Collins
Montana State University, MT·Microbiology & Immunology
Test the hypothesis that molecules controlled by the S. aureus SaeR/S gene regulatory system disrupt autophagy, a self-digestion process that kills trapped microbes, in human neutrophils after they swallow the bacteria.
Vincent Michael Bruno
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine the role of ANGPTL4, a protein produced downstream of the host hypoxia-response pathway, in Mucorales lung invasion, and test whether blocking it treats mucormycosis in mice.
The school
Oregon State University: 29 labs on PI Pages, $372M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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