Jerry Jiang L&S Biological Sciences
Exploring a lanthanide-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase in S. meliloti
Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011 (S. meliloti) is a nitrogen fixing bacteria that enhances the growth of economically significant crops like alfalfa and fenugreek. Lanthanides are a group of metals that have great importance in modern technologies, but emerging research also indicates that they are involved in biological processes. We’ve recently discovered S. meliloti can grow on methanol, a prevalent substrate in the plant environment, only when lanthanides are added. This suggests that S. meliloti encodes genes involved in lanthanide transport and a lanthanide dependent methanol dehydrogenase. I will create mutant strains lacking putative methanol dehydrogenases and compare these clean deletions to wildtype using both phenotyping experiments and assays to detect alcohol dehydrogenase activity. This work will identify and characterize the lanthanide-dependent methanol dehydrogenase responsible for growth on methanol in S. meliloti. Better understanding of lanthanide and methanol metabolism in S. meliloti may allow us to develop strategies for increasing crop yield through the addition of lanthanides to soil to stimulate root nodule bacteria.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you for supporting my research over the summer! I was able to grow as a scientist by deeply analyzing a specific phenotype I saw and practice communicating my research to peers. This experience has cemented my goal of applying to graduate school because it has provided me more confident in setting up experiments and made me realize I love diving deep into a fascinating phenomenon, with the eventual goal of sharing my findings to peers.