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Scientist investigating microbial mischief and how mobile genetic elements – like bacteriophage – change the way bacteria behave

Imagine a bacterium as a factory that makes useful products (like proteins) to keep itself alive and running. Now, picture a bacteriophage (a virus that infects bacteria) as a tiny spy robot designed to sneak into that factory. Like any good spy, the phage comes well equipped with cool gear. It has an outer shell to protect it from the factory’s defenses and inside the robot is a blueprint (genetic material like DNA or RNA) with a plan for how to take over the factory. When the robot reaches the factory control room, it injects its blueprint into the factory computer. This causes the factory to stop making its own products and, instead, start mass-producing more spy robots! Eventually, the factory becomes so full of new robots that it explodes, releasing them out into the world to find new bacterium factories to invade.

Bacteriophages – or viruses that infect bacteria – are the most abundant organisms on the planet, and almost all known bacteria can be infected by one or more bacteriophages (aka ‘phages’). Phages are a big part of the communities of microbes that live in and on our bodies, called the ‘microbiome.’ But scientists are just beginning to understand the role phages play in these communities and how they might affect our health. There's also a lot of excitement about using phages as a new kind of treatment to fight harmful bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. A long-term goal of the Duerkop lab is to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms used by phages (and other mobile genetic elements) to alter bacterial communities and to determine the role of the effects that phages may play on health and disease.

Phages, Plasmids and Insertion Sequences are Key Players in the Microbial Messaging System

DNA or RNA segments that have the potential to move between bacteria are called mobile genetic elements (MGE). A good example of an MGE is the phage, or spy robot, mentioned above. MGE’s are not always destructive though. Two other MGE examples are plasmids or tiny loops of DNA that bacteria share with each other (like passing notes in class) and insertion sequences or little pieces of DNA that can jump around inside a bacterium’s genetic material or genome (like microbe-sized cut-and-paste tools).

Dr. Breck Duerkop is a microbiologist on the CU Anschutz campus working hard to understand how MGEs work and impact bacteria behavior inside the human body.

Why is the research that Breck and his team work on in their lab so important?

The Duerkop research team is especially interested in how the MGEs change the way bacteria behave and how these changes might influence how bacteria act in the human body. Breck and his team study MGEs in the community of helpful bacteria living in our bodies, called the microbiome. They also study harmful bacteria that cause infections and are hard to treat with antibiotics, called antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The Duerkop lab focuses on a group of bacteria called enterococci, which usually live in our bodies peacefully but sometimes cause serious infections. These bacteria are especially dangerous because they are resistant to antibiotics - often as a result of MGEs - and are easily transmitted in medical settings like hospitals.

By learning more about how mobile genetic elements (MGE) work and alter the way bacteria behave, they hope to understand how they affect the balance between health and disease. 

The Duerkop lab focuses on two major areas of microbial mystery:

1. Unraveling the secret battles between viruses and bacteria

The Duerkop team is working hard to uncover the molecular mechanisms that phages use to infect bacteria, and the strategies that bacteria use to fight back and prevent infection. To do this, they collect phages from wastewater, where these microscopic battles are happening all the time. The lab is especially interested in phages that can target antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are becoming harder to treat successfully with antibiotics. Their main focus is on a group of bacteria called Enterococcus, which normally live harmlessly in our guts. But sometimes, they can turn dangerous and cause serious infections—especially in hospitals. The science names for the Enterococcus species they study are E. faecalis and E. faecium. They are intestinal pathobionts, a fancy science term that means they can transition from benign or harmless commensal microbes that live peacefully in the gut into opportunistic microbes that cause infection and harm.

By understanding how phages and bacteria interact, they hope to find new ways to fight infections that no longer respond to antibiotics.

2. Investigating how the immune system shapes the hidden world of viruses in our gut

Breck and his lab are exploring how phage communities – collectively known as the ‘virome’ – are influenced by the immune system, the body’s defense system against invading pathogens. They use both computer models and lab experiments to understand how the immune system might influence which phages thrive and which phages don’t. They want to know: if the immune system changes the balance of these phages, could that also affect the bacteria in the gut—and, in turn, overall gut health?

By understanding how phages and the immune system interact, they hope to find new ways to fight bacterial infection and improve gut health.

Future directions for this research…

Dr. Duerkop and his team will continue to explore how bacteriophage – and other mobile genetic elements (MGEs) – alter the way bacteria behave. By uncovering these hidden mechanisms, the team will better understand not just how the bacteria themselves change, but also what might happen inside the human body when infected with these types of bacteria. They hope to use this knowledge to discover treatments for human bacterial infections that are resistant to traditional antibiotics but that may be susceptible to therapies that target bacteriophages.

If you want to learn more about the scientist, please head to their official CU webpage