Quantification of Corrinoids in Fermented Foods
Michi Taga, Professor
Plant and Microbial Biology
Closed. This professor is continuing with Spring 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Fall 2024.
Microbes live in nearly every environment on the planet, including on and within other organisms. Furthermore, microbes form complex communities in these ecosystems where they cooperate or compete for valuable resources. In the Taga lab, we study microbial community interactions by focusing on a family of nutrients called corrinoids (the most well-studied is Vitamin B12). Corrinoids are enzyme cofactors used by most bacteria for a wide variety of cellular processes, from central carbon metabolism in fermentation to formation of DNA and other molecules. Our lab found that adding corrinoids to microbial communities from the human gut changes microbial community composition. Thus, adding different corrinoids to human gut microbial communities through our diet has the potential to alter the structure and function of these communities. However, the distribution of diverse corrinoids in fermented foods has not been fully assessed. Therefore, the overall goal of the project is to characterize the distribution of corrinoids in fermented foods.
Role: As a member of the Taga lab, you will be part of a project assessing the role of nutrients in altering human gut-associated microbial communities. Specifically, you will extract corrinoids from different fermented foods and quantify the composition and concentration of corrinoids from various sources. With mentorship from graduate student Dennis Suazo, You will learn how to extract and analyze corrinoids using biochemical techniques, and grow and use bacterial strains in quantitative bioassays. You will gain experience in how to formulate hypotheses, test them with experiments, analyze and interpret data, and present your findings. Your work on this project will contribute to our understanding of the diversity of corrinoids in fermented foods and how bacterial communities react to diverse corrinoids, which ultimately could lead to better ways of controlling human-associated microbial communities using tools such as prebiotics or probiotics.
Qualifications: You do not need to have prior lab experience to apply. We are looking for students that have a strong enthusiasm for lab research and are prepared to engage intellectually with the project. You should have three or more 3-hour time blocks per week available in your schedule for the entire semester. We also encourage students requiring financial assistance to apply (please contact us about details).
Please include a few sentences about yourself in your application (including details such as your hobbies, interests, and passions). We are not interested in your GPA but rather in why lab research is exciting to you, and how you see this experience fitting within your goals.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Dennis Suazo, Ph.D. candidate
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Related website: http://tagalab.berkeley.edu/
Biological & Health Sciences