Publications by authors named "Sherrie Y Wu"
Article Synopsis
- The human skin microbiome acts as a protective barrier against pathogens by producing antimicrobial substances, making it a valuable resource for discovering new natural products.
- Researchers introduced the EPithelial Isolate Collection (EPIC), which comprises 980 diverse bacterial strains from human skin across eight body sites, including many rare strains with unique biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs).
- Through extensive testing, they found that this microbiome exhibits strong antifungal properties, with certain body sites showing higher potential for discovering new bioactive compounds, leading to advancements in antimicrobial drug development and microbiome research.
The skin and its microbiome function to protect the host from pathogen colonization and environmental stressors. In this study, using the Wisconsin Miniature Swine™ model, we characterize the porcine skin fungal and bacterial microbiomes, identify bacterial isolates displaying antifungal activity, and use whole-genome sequencing to identify biosynthetic gene clusters encoding for secondary metabolites that may be responsible for the antagonistic effects on fungi. Through this comprehensive approach of paired microbiome sequencing with culturomics, we report the discovery of novel species of Corynebacterium and Rothia.
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