Myxobacteria Brings Students Together for Publication

by Margaret Savoie

Akbar Recent Ph.D. alumna Shukria Akbar and current graduate student Kayleigh Phillips from the Department of BioMolecular Sciences, Division of Pharmacognosy, published a paper in Environmental Microbiology – “Differential Response to Prey Quorum Signals Indicates Predatory Specialization of Myxobacteria and Ability to Predate Pseudomonas Aeruginosa.”

The publication is about predatory myxobacteria in soil. The myxobacteria eat other microbes predominantly on other gram-negative bacteria to fulfill their nutritional needs. “Think of this as New York City,” said Phillips. “In the soil, there are so many different types of different organisms that send out chemical signals and some of the bacteria are eavesdropping on those signals and we are looking at that interaction.” The focus was to investigate metabolomics and transcriptomics responses of two myxobacteria to the signaling molecules of their Pseudomonas bacterial prey and correlate this response to myxobacteria predatory specialization.

A May 2021 graduate, Akbar has multiple publications about myxobacteria. Another publication published in Scientific Reports explored the steps a prey bacterium, specifically Pseudomonas putida, took to avoid a predatory myxobacterium. She discovered distinct features the prey bacterial phenotype demonstrated compared to a non-avoiding phenotype of the same prey species.

Akbar received a Pharm.D. degree from the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Once at the University of Mississippi and working with Professor Cole Stevens on different research projects, Akbar’s interest in myxobacteria was ignited.

“With a Pharm.D. background, I wanted to work on one of the systems that are factories for producing biologically relevant small molecules, such as antibiotics,” said Akbar.

Akbar is currently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a post-doctoral research associate. Her current work is focused on bacterial symbionts associated with insect hosts and trying to discover anti-infective small molecules that these bacteria produce.

Phillips had a different introduction to this area of research. “I received my bachelor’s from Mississippi State, took some time off and I had a job at a pharmaceutical company, working as a microbiologist,” said Phillips. Phillips said she knew she always wanted to go back to school. Once the decision was made, she started looking at different programs. The work that Stevens’ lab was doing with myxobacteria helped Phillips to make her decision.

The team of Akbar and Phillips came together in May of 2021.

“I enjoyed working in the Stevens lab,” said Akbar. “Professor Stevens is a very understanding supervisor and I believe he provided me with everything that I needed,” she continued.

“I really like having funding for students to do projects where they can learn a lot,” said Stevens. He continued, “It’s more about answering questions and figuring things out than it is producing a product for us.”

“I could not see myself where I am today without all that I received from the University of Mississippi and I cannot forget the participation of everyone from my advisor, Dr. Stevens, to excel me as a researcher, to my department’s chair, Professor Kristine Willett, in providing resources to excel professionally, to Dr. Annette D. Kluck, dean of the Graduate School, for connecting the grads writing partners [through the summer thesis/dissertation discussion group and writing groups] to make us feel accomplished,” said Akbar.

Myxobacteria Brings Students Together for Publication

Newsletter Fall/Winter 2021 Articles