Paul Kirchberger
Oklahoma State University, OK·Microbiology & Immunology
The human gut is home to vast numbers of viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages. Among the most abundant and stable residents are the Microviridae, tiny viruses with single-stranded DNA genomes.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
bacteriophage
Microviridae
microvirus
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2029
What they work on
- Compare the mechanisms of superinfection exclusion, by which a resident prophage blocks other viruses, across independently evolved microvirus prophages, a putative defense system and lytic microviruses that may have supplied its evolutionary precursors.
- Test how hypervariable genome regions govern superinfection exclusion by synthesizing variants of the model microvirus Enterogokushovirus carrying each known region type and running pairwise infection assays.
- Identify the natural bacterial hosts of major human gut microvirus lineages and establish laboratory virus-host systems for them, using anaerobic culturing of gut bacteria such as Bacteroides and Prevotella.
- Build a system for deliberately altering Microviridae host range, exploiting their small single-stranded DNA genomes that can be synthesized from sequence data and introduced into host cells.
- Reintroduce engineered microviruses into controlled microbiome communities to test whether they establish and precisely shift microbial community composition.
More about the research
Because host bacteria are a limited resource, these viruses compete fiercely for cells, and some integrate into the bacterial genome as prophages, lying dormant inside their host. The lab studies how these viruses defend their hosts against rival viruses and how their simple genomes can be rewritten to steer gut bacterial communities.
Why it matters
Gut bacteria influence health, but tools to adjust specific members of the community are scarce. Engineered microviruses with controllable host range could eventually allow targeted manipulation of gut bacteria toward desired health outcomes, such as blocking bacterial infections, forming the basis of a synthetic phage therapy platform. The work also expands the known catalog of anti-phage defense systems in bacteria.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Larry Dishaw
University of South Florida, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Characterize the distribution of prophages and their insertion locations in the genomes of cultivated heterotrophic bacteria isolated from the gut microbiomes of the tunicate Ciona robusta and the zebrafish Danio rerio.
Jay Lennon
Indiana University, IN·Microbiology & Immunology
Test competing models of how phage genomes become entrapped in Bacillus subtilis spores, using CRISPR editing of viral auxiliary sporulation genes and single-cell assays to assess suppression of the lytic cycle and chromosome segregation.
Marcia Marston
Roger Williams University, RI·Microbiology & Immunology
Isolate about 100 Synechococcus cyanobacteria and 200 cyanophages from Narragansett Bay and test cross-infection to ask at what level of genetic relatedness infection networks shift from nested to modular.
The school
Oklahoma State University: 15 labs on PI Pages, $254M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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