Microbial Physiology
Microorganisms are also important to our environment and human. Any change in their community composition can negatively influence the function and role of a particular niche. Microbial physiology can reasonably be defined as “structure-function relationships in microorganisms, especially how microbes respond to their environment”. In synergy to plant growth, microbes and their communities have been prone to impacts of global climate change. Microbe, in returns to changes in environmental conditions, offers a diverse array of benefits to human beings to improve the deteriorating environment and increase the benefits for human beings. Such as utilizing them to bioremediate polluted soil and water, increase the efficiency of phytoremediation, enhance their abilities to produce biologically active metabolites that can be used for cancer treatments.
We try to understand important questions like:
- How microbial growth can be enhanced to produce higher quantities of secondary metabolites that are beneficial against human diseases
- What are biosynthetic pathways and gene regulatory dynamics that can be enhanced through gene-editing technologies
- How the microbes augment hazardous contaminants such as heavy metals and aromatic hydrocarbons to clean up the environment
Approaches:
This research work involves several methodologies such as:
- Isolating, culturing, and characterization of bioactive microbes from different environments
- Molecular identification by sequencing the amplicon 16S/ITS gene and bioinformatic analysis
- Whole-genome sequencing the bioactive microbial strain with NovaSeq 6000 Illumina and PacBio
- Bioinformatic analysis with the help of UH cluster and available computational resources in the lab
- Identification of gene-clusters and biosynthetic pathways in potential microbes
- Gene cloning, transformation, and genome editing technologies to develop competent microbes
- Extra-Cellular enzymes, biochemical, phytohormonal, and organic acids assessment with the help of GC/MS SIM, fluorescence spectroscopy, and HPLC
- Metabolomics analysis of targeted and non-targeted ones using LC/MS-MS and Chemo-informatics using available libraries