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SUMMARY:Rate and pattern of evolutionary change in the gut microbiota as r
 evealed by a commensal bacteria - Dr Isabel Gordo\, Evolutionary Biology G
 roup\, Gulbenkian Institute\, Lisbon 
DTSTART:20170223T140000Z
DTEND:20170223T150000Z
UID:TALK69057@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Hundreds of different bacterial species inhabit our intestines
  and contribute to our health status. A great deal of variation is however
  hidden within each microbial species and such intra-specific variation is
  also key to the proper homeostasis between the host and its microbial inh
 abitants. Yet our knowledge on this hidden diversity is still limited and 
 an understanding of the evolutionary mechanisms acting on it is extremely 
 reduced.  We have been using experimental evolution and NGS to follow the 
 emergence of intra-species diversity in Escherichia coli\, a common commen
 sal\, when it colonizes the mouse gut. The data gathered so far indicates 
 that a strong-mutation-strong selection regime drives the patterns of evol
 utionary change in this ecosystem. It further shows that E. coli evolution
  is characterized by the spread of similar adaptive mutations across diffe
 rent hosts. The repeatability in the dynamics and genetic basis of E. coli
  adaptation is also found to be much higher in healthy hosts than in immun
 e-compromised ones. Overall these findings strongly suggest that levels of
  intra-species diversity may be large and highly dynamic\, perhaps suggest
 ing that rapid evolutionary change may be important to understand the high
  diversity levels observed in the mammalian microbiota.\n\n
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture Theatre\, Department of Genetics\, Downing Site
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