My laboratory studies the regulation of expression of genetic transfer functions and the regulation of virulence in gram positive bacteria. We are especially interested in regulatory mechanisms involving cell-cell signaling by peptide mating pheromones. We also study several novel intracellular regulatory RNA molecules that control expression of genes involved in conjugative plasmid transfer. Additional projects in the lab are focused on functional genomics of enterococci, with special emphasis on biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance and virulence.Since the MICaB program began, I have trained 10 Ph students and 10 postdoctoral fellows.
Publications
- Barnes, Aaron MT, Ballering, Katie S., Leibman, Rachel S., Wells, Carol L., Dunny, Gary M. 2012. Enterococcus faecalis Produces Abundant Extracellular Structures Containing DNA in the Absence of Cell Lysis during Early Biofilm Formation. mBio 3(4):e00193-12. doi:10.1128/mBio.00193-12.
- Chatterjee, A., Cook, LCC, Shu, CC, Chen, Y, Manias DA, Ramkrishna, D., Dunny, GM, Hu, W-S .2013. Antagonistic self-sensing and mate-sensing signaling controls antibiotic-resistance transfer. PNAS, 110(17), 7086-7090.
- Frank KL, Guiton PS, Barnes AM, Manias DA, Chuang-Smith ON, Kohler PL, Spaulding AR, Hultgren SJ, Schlievert PM, Dunny GM. 2013. AhrC and Eep are biofilm infection-associated virulence factors in Enterococcus faecalis. Infect Immun. 2013 May;81(5):1696-708.
- Johnson CM, Haemig HH, Chatterjee A, Wei-Shou H, Weaver KE, Dunny GM. 2011. RNA-mediated reciprocal regulation between two bacterial operons is RNase III dependent. MBio.2(5). pii: e00189-11.
- Cook L, Chatterjee A, Barnes A, Yarwood J, Hu WS, Dunny G. 2011. Biofilm growth alters regulation of conjugation by a bacterial pheromone. Mol Microbiol. 2011 Sep;81(6):1499-510.
