The ecology and metabolome of microbial communities

Summary
The nutrient landscape of the gut plays a key role in preventing colonisation by pathogens, as commensal microbes fill the niches available to a pathogen and prevent it getting a foothold. Understanding the relationship between bacterial growth and nutrient availability in the gut is therefore important to understand how a healthy gut microbiome is maintained; however, cross-feeding interactions between bacterial strains, and the high number of metabolites present in the gut makes this challenging. To advance our understanding of these processes I will investigate: 1) How do gut bacteria grow on single carbon sources and how this influences microbial metabolism? I will measure the growth of bacteria and the production of additional metabolites in defined media to characterise their growth. To do this I will first develop a defined, minimal media, and complete development of an Ion-exchange chromatography-mass spectrometry method for the detection of bacterial metabolites. 2) How does the nutrient environment affect community composition, stability and the ability to resist pathogen colonisation? After characterising the growth and metabolomic output of individual bacteria I will investigate whether a better understanding of the niche each bacterial species occupies in a community facilitates prediction of the effect of changes in nutrient availability.
BBSRC Priority Areas
Understanding the rules of life
Transformative technologies
Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food
Bioscience for renewable resources and clean growth
Bioscience for an integrated understanding of health