Below is recent work performed by IM Faculty and Graduate Students. IM members are bolded and students have an asterisk (*). Do you have any recent publications or manuscripts in review? Send them to nlambrec@iastate.edu in time for the October/November edition!

• Aune, J. E., Evans, L. L., & Boury, N. (2018). Using Nonfiction Narratives in an English Course to Teach the Nature of Science and Its Importance to Communicating About Science. Journal of microbiology & biology education, 19(1). ncbi.

Importance of this work:  This is a curriculum paper that serves as a guidebook for faculty wanting to link English curricular outcomes to science.

• Ma, J., An, C., Jiang, F., Yao, H., Logue, C., Nolan, L. K. and Li, G. (2018), Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli Increase Extracellular Polysaccharide Biosynthesis for Serum Resistance in Response to Bloodstream Signals. Molecular Microbiology. ncbi.

Importance of this work: We elucidate the mechanisms by which extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli “recognize” the physic-chemical parameters characteristic to the in-vivo localized microenvironment and “reprogram” the expression of serum resistance factors in order to survive in the host bloodstream.

• *Trachsel, J., Briggs, C., Gabler, N.K., Allen, H.K. and Loving, C.L.. “Resistant Potato Starch Fuels Beneficial Host-Microbe Interactions in the Gut.” bioRxiv, 2018. Biorxiv.

Importance of this work: Prebiotic feed additive resistant potato starch improves gut health in piggies via gut bacterial communities.  Pigs are an important food-producing animal in addition to being an excellent model for how things work in humans.

• Chen, Yingxi, Michael Reinhardt, Natalia Neris, Lucas Kerns, Thomas J Mansell, and Laura R Jarboe. “Lessons in Membrane Engineering for Octanoic Acid Production from Environmental Escherichia Coli Isolates.” Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2018. aem.

Importance of this work: We use a set of previously-characterized environmental E. coli isolates with high tolerance and production of octanoic acid, a model membrane-damaging biorenewable product, as a case study for identifying and prioritizing membrane engineering strategies. This characterization identified differences in the membrane lipid composition, fluidity, integrity and cell surface hydrophobicity relative to the lab strain MG1655.