Christopher Waters
Michigan State University, MI·Microbiology & Immunology
Cells must sense their surroundings and respond, and one way they do this is with small signaling molecules called second messengers. A family of these, the cyclic di-nucleotides (cdNs), made of two linked nucleotide units, is used by organisms from bacteria to humans.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemistry
Genetics
- Topics
Vibrio cholerae
cyclic di-nucleotides
second messengers
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Determine how DcdV, a two-domain deoxycytidine deaminase from Vibrio cholerae, works at the cellular and atomic levels, using genetics, biochemistry, microscopy, and structural biology.
- Define how the inhibitor DifV controls DcdV and test whether releasing DcdV shifts DNA building-block levels, raising dUTP and lowering dCTP and dTTP, to defend bacteria against phages.
- Define how the second messenger cyclic di-GMP regulates gene expression, DNA repair, stress responses, and cell curvature in Vibrio cholerae, and how these networks affect bacterial fitness.
- Further characterize the Vibrio cholerae cyclic GMP-AMP pathway, including its receptor CapV, a fat-cutting enzyme, and extend studies of similar signaling pathways to other bacteria.
- Identify the enzyme that makes cyclic di-UMP in heat-shocked Saccharomyces cerevisiae, determine its effects on yeast physiology, and search for cyclic di-UMP signaling in other eukaryotic cells.
More about the research
In bacteria, cdNs control biofilm formation, movement, virulence, and defense against phages (viruses that infect bacteria). In animals, they help switch on antiviral immunity. The lab works mainly in Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera. Its two projects ask how cdN signaling works across the tree of life and how a newly discovered enzyme system may help the current cholera pandemic strain defend itself against phages.
Why it matters
These signaling and nucleotide-control systems govern how bacteria such as the cholera pathogen cause disease, survive stress, and fight off viruses. Related systems help human cells mount antiviral and anticancer immune responses. Understanding them adds basic knowledge about how cells regulate DNA building blocks, defend against viruses, and sense their environment, with relevance to both bacterial and eukaryotic biology.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ming Hammond
University of Utah, UT·Chemistry
Develop a high-throughput assay that monitors in real time how small molecules cross into bacterial cells by passive permeation, active uptake or efflux pumping, and use it to test which structures and genes affect accumulation of dyes and clinical antibiotics.
Andrew Bridges
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemically characterize the lysis-sensing receptor and its signal in Vibrio cholerae to learn how detecting the death of related cells triggers formation of protective biofilms.
Andrew Santiago-Frangos
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biochemistry·Early-career
Find conserved DNA motifs in CRISPR leader sequences that may control spacer integration, transcription or RNA processing, using a bioinformatic search across CRISPR systems.
The school
Michigan State University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 555 research doctorates a year.
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