Biology subjects

Batarseh, T. N.

Publications and source records attributed to Batarseh, T. N..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Linking genomic and phenotypic traits to interaction outcomes in a synthetic phyllosphere community

Predicting microbiome function remains challenging as microbial interactions scale from pairwise encounters to emergent community properties. This is particularly true of disease protective microbial consortia, where pathogen invasion has typically been studied either in terms of single biocontrol agents or in terms of microbiome diversity at the full community level, but rarely in between. Focusing on a 16-member synthetic tomato phyllosphere bacterial community, we combined reciprocal spent-media growth assays of over 600 pairwise and community-level combinations with comparative genomics to dissect the ecological and metabolic drivers of community interactions. Across the interaction network, negative interactions dominated, with community-derived spent media consistently exerting stronger inhibitory effects on bacterial growth across the community than any single-species filtrate. While two isolates (Exiguobacterium sibiricum and Bacillus thuringiensis) exhibited strong inhibitory effects in monoculture assays, community spent media analyses revealed that no single strain was responsible for the pathogen-suppressive phenotype observed in community, indicating that protection against Pseudomonas syringae is an emergent property of the particular community composition. Furthermore, using correlations and cross-validated multivariate models, inhibition strengths were poorly predicted by either genomic annotations or phenotypic strategies. Instead, community context strongly constrained environmental modification and buffered strain-specific effects observed in isolation. Together, these results demonstrate that microbial community function cannot easily be inferred from pairwise interactions or individual strain properties alone, and that both direct and indirect interactions shape phyllosphere community structure and function, with emergent properties such as pathogen suppression arising from collective properties rather than the presence/absence or dominance of individual keystone taxa.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Phenotypic and genotypic adaptation of E. coli to thermal stress is contingent on genetic background

Evolution can be contingent on history, but we do not yet have a clear understanding of the processes and dynamics that govern contingency. Here we performed the second phase of a two-phase evolution experiment to investigate features of contingency. The first phase of the experiment was based on Escherichia coli clones that had evolved population at the stressful temperature of 42.2{degrees}C. The Phase 1 lines generally evolved through two adaptive pathways: mutations of rpoB, which encodes the beta subunit of RNA polymerase, or through rho, a transcriptional terminator. We hypothesized that epistatic interactions within the two pathways constrained their future adaptative potential, thus affecting patterns of historical contingency. Using 10 different E. coli Founders representing both adaptive pathways, we performed a second phase of evolution at 19.0{degrees}C to investigate how prior genetic divergence or adaptive history (rpoB vs. rho) may affect the likelihood of parallel responses and evolutionary outcomes. We found that phenotype, as measured by relative fitness, was contingent on founder genotypes and pathways. This finding extended to genotypes, because E. coli from different Phase 1 histories evolved by adaptive mutations in distinct sets of genes. Our results suggest that evolution depends critically on genetic history, likely due to idiosyncratic epistatic interactions within and between evolutionary modules.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Using genomes and evolutionary analyses to screen for host-specificity and arms-race dynamics in the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa

Xylella fastidiosa infects several economically important crops in the Americas, and it also recently emerged in Europe. Here, using a set of Xylella genomes reflective of the genus-wide diversity, we performed a pan-genome analysis based on both core and accessory genes, for two purposes: i) to test associations between genetic divergence and plant host species and ii) to identify positively selected genes that are potentially involved in arms-race dynamics. For the former, tests yielded significant evidence for specialization of X. fastidiosa to plant host species. This observation contributes to a growing literature suggesting that the phylogenetic history of X. fastidiosa lineages affects host range. For the latter, our analyses uncovered evidence of positive selection across codons for 5.3% (67 of 1,257) of core genes and 5.4% (201 of 3,691) of accessory genes; these genes are candidates to encode interacting factors with plant and insect hosts. Most of these genes had unknown functions, but we identified some tractable candidates including nagZ_2, which encodes a beta-glucosidase that is important for Neisseria gonorrhoeae biofilm formation; cya, which modulates gene expression in pathogenic bacteria; and barA, a membrane associated histidine kinase that has roles in cell division, metabolism, and pili formation. ABSTRACT IMPORTANCEXylella fastidiosa causes devasting diseases to several critical crops. Because X. fastidiosa colonizes and infects many plant species, it is important to understand whether the genome of X. fastidiosa has genetic determinants that underlie specialization to specific host plants. We analyzed genome sequences of X. fastidiosa to investigate evolutionary relationships and to test for evidence of positive selection on specific genes. We found a significant signal between genome diversity and host plants, consistent with bacterial specialization to specific plant hosts. By screening for positive selection, we identified both core and accessory genes that may affect pathogenicity, including genes involved in biofilm formation.

microbiology↗