BIO

I am Urvish Patel. I am a sophomore here at FSU. My hometown is Perry, Florida and I am an alumni of Taylor County High School. My carrier goals are to study obtain a Bachelors in Biological Science and apply to medical school to become an infectious disease doctor. My current research goal is to classify my current phage named 8C. Through my research, I wish to get a better understanding of microbiology and learn more about microorganisms, so that I am better prepared for my future carrier position.

Sinorhizobium meliloti bacteriophage 8C is a Siphovirus closely related to phages of the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Rhizobial bacteria are agriculturally important nitrogen-fixing endosymbionts of legume plants that provide ‘fixed’ nitrogen to the host. Rhizobia can exist in the free-living state in the soil or invade host plant roots to initiate the symbiosis. All bacteria, including the rhizobia, are preyed upon by viruses, known as bacteriophages. We are studying the role that bacteriophages play in attrition of the rhizobial populations in the soil and how this influences the success of the soil rhizobial population relative to the population that engages in the symbiosis with host plants. As part of this study, we are characterizing different groups of bacteriophages that infect the rhizobial species Sinorhizobium meliloti. Initial genome sequencing of one of these phages, 8C, suggested that it belongs to the family Siphoviridae. Siphoviruses are characterized by a long non-contractile tail. This morphology was validated for 8C by electron microscopy, which also shows a prolate (elongated) head. Surprisingly, 8C is very similar to phages that infect the human respiratory pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Further characterization of the structure of the capsid by electron microscopy has been limited by instability of the capsid during purification. It is uncertain what is causing this to occur, and we are currently determining conditions that improve capsid stability. Future goals to understand more about 8C are to determine the capsid structure using cryo-electron microscopy, characterize the proteome using mass spectrometry, and determine where each of the functional modules of the 8C genome lie on a phylogenetic tree.

Keywords: Phages, Rhizobial bacteria, Electron microscopy, Phylogenetic tree, Genomic