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Nutritional Basis of E. coli Colonization of the Mouse Intestine
There are both non-pathogenic strains of E. coli that inhabit (colonize) the mammalian intestine for long periods of time as well as pathogenic strains that don’t colonize the intestine for long periods, but cause disease. Essentially nothing is known about the nutrition of pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli strains in the intestine. The goal of our research is to identify the sugars that non-pathogenic and pathogenic strains of E. coli utilize for growth in the mouse intestine and determine whether they are the same or different. Our data to date suggest that some non-pathogenic strains of E. coli utilize different sugars than other non-pathogenic E. coli strains in the intestine and that pathogenic strains of E. coli can utilize still other sugars for growth in the intestine. The data obtained in these studies may result in a nutritional explanation as to how humans can be colonized with several non-pathogenic E. coli strains simultaneously and may help to determine whether there is a nutritional explanation as to why some humans develop intestinal disease and some do not when all are exposed to the same pathogenic E. coli strains. Furthermore, the data obtained may eventually allow us to construct non-pathogenic E. coli strains that may protect humans against intestinal E. coli pathogens. The 2009 RI-INBRE SURF Fellow that works on this project will learn to generate deletions in genes of interest in both pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains of E. coli based on known DNA sequences available in genomic databases and will learn to run intestinal colonization studies with these mutants in mice.
 News & Events

RI-INBRE Newsletter Fall 2009

RI-INBRE Newsletter Fall 2009

Grant Workshop PowerPoint Presentations & Handouts

Balancing Teaching and Research at PUIs

Components of a Successful AREA (R15) Grant

NSF-RUI Program: Strategies and Tips for Success

Handouts

Important Dates

RI-INBRE Calendar

12/3//09 - Shahram Khademi, Ph.D, University of Iowa - "The structure and mechanism of ammonia channels"

12/4/09 - 4th Annual BioNES Meeting, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

1/29/10 - RI-INBRE Research Fellows Meeting & Faculty Retreat, Providence College, Providence, RI

3/1/10 - Application Deadline for the 2010 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships

6/16/10 - 6/18/10 National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence, Bethesda, MD

 Supported by grant #  P20RR016457 from:
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University of Rhode Island
Fogarty Hall		 | 41 Lower College Rd | Kingston, RI 02881
Phone: (401) 874-9288 | Fax: (401) 874-2646 | E-mail: riinbre@etal.uri.edu