Dissertation Defense: Ernest Williams (PhD Candidate, UMCES-IMET)

Title: Insights into Dinoflagellate Natural Product Synthesis Via Catalytic Domain Interactions

Speaker: Ernest Williams (PhD Candidate, UMCES-IMET)

Host: Dr. Allen Place

Abstract: Dinoflagellates are marine eukaryotes that can be heterotrophic, phototrophic, or a mix of both. They make many products that can intoxicate humans and wildlife and can also be exploited as therapeutic agents. Unfortunately these natural products cannot as yet be synthesized in the lab and their biosynthetic pathways are unknown. Additionally, although we know many of the functional domains that may be involved in natural product synthesis, traditional molecular and genetic methods to determine their exact function and interacting partners are limited by the unique biology and genomic arrangements of dinoflagellates. We have developed a bottom-up approach to studying natural product synthesis in dinoflagellates as a three-stage process: 1) Identify genes for further study targeting those with low variability and copy number, 2) Describe the biology of these genes looking at sequence motifs and expression patterns, and 3) Categorize these genes biochemically looking at the specificity of pairwise interactions. The results of this approach demonstrate the many was that dinoflagellates do natural product synthesis differently from model bacteria and fungi and how horizontal gene transfer has fundamentally shaped its evolution. The technical achievements of this study and how they can be leveraged for future investigations will also be discussed.

For meeting information please contact imetdirectorsoffice@umces.edu.