CANS seminar by: Hanne Winther-Larsen, Professor in Microbiology, Head of the research group MicroPath (Microbial pathogenesis, vaccines and antimicrobial resistance) Laboratory of Pharmaceutical microbiology and immunity Section for Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo.
Title of presentation: Bacterial extracellular vesicles in intercellular communication and
vaccine development
Date/time: Thursday 4 February, 14:15 – 15:15.
Zoom: please contact lise.nordgard@uit.no for more information
Abstract:
Our research group has a research focus within molecular microbiology in a One Health Perspective. We study various mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions of bacterial species causing disease in humans and in fish species important for aquaculture. We are also interested in antimicrobial resistance development and the effect the use of antimicrobials has on the gut microbiome and the environment. One of our main interests are the biology of extracellular vesicles (EV) secreted form the bacterial body, and how they act as messengers in cell-cell communication including transfer for antimicrobial resistance in vesiduction, the fourth way of microbial horizontal gene transfer. To address our research questions we use various models where we mainly study the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae and the fish pathogens Francisella noatunensis, Piscirickettsia salmonis and Yersinia ruckeri. We try to translate our basic research into applied sciences and together with several industrial partners we are investigating the potential use of EVs as vaccines for fish. In this regards the specific packaging and content of the EVs are of importance. In this presentation, recent results from our group which suggest that specific genetic material is packaged into the EVs, will be presented. We also have data that propose that this genetic material does not seem to be translated in the vesicles themselves, which is a central question in EV biology and function.