[CCoE Notice] MS Thesis: Engineering Alkane-Inducible Fimbriation in Escherichia coli

[Grayson, Audrey A]

MS THESIS DEFENSE STUDENT: Ryan McLay
DATE: Monday,May 2, 2016
TIME: 10:00 AM
PLACE: Mechanical Engineering Large Conference Room
DISSERTATION CHAIRS: Dr. Jacinta Conrad and Dr. Patrick Cirino
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TITLE:

Engineering Alkane-Inducible Fimbriation in Escherichia coli

Fimbriae are small, hair-like appendages arranged on many bacteria’s outer-membrane surfaces used for binding to biotic and abiotic surfaces to resist shear forces and attach to nutrient sources.  Fimbriae are important in the initial attachment of cells to a substrate as well as the subsequent irreversible attachment to a surface.  In this investigation, E. coli was engineered to over-express fimbriae in response to the presence of IPTG and DCPK.  The over-expression of fimbriae in E. coli resulted in a pronounced response to the agglutination of mannose-containing yeast cells, causing them to sediment from solution at a much faster rate than wild-type or fimbrial deletion strains.  Furthermore, the presence of fimbriae resulted in a significantly higher partitioning of cells into hydrocarbon sources across a range of alkanes.  Lastly, the presence of fimbriae was shown to be essential in the development of biofilms, where only strains expressing fimbriae resulted in biofilm formation.
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