SEA-PHAGES Logo

The official website of the HHMI Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science program.

Abstract Summary

Below is a summary of the abstract you submitted. Presenting author(s) is shown in bold.

If any changes need to be made, you can modify the abstract or change the authors.

You can also download a .docx version of this abstract.

If there are any problems, please email Dan at dar78@pitt.edu and he'll take care of them!

This abstract was last modified on June 6, 2018 at 9:05 p.m..

Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Corresponding Faculty Member: Viknesh Sivanathan, sivanathanv@hhmi.org
This abstract will NOT be considered for a talk.
New Actinobacterial Hosts & A New DNA Isolation Protocol
Emily Davis, Priscilla Kobi, Aleem Mohamed, Viknesh Sivanathan

New Actinobacterial Hosts: The scientific goal of SEA-PHAGES is to explore the biodiversity of actinobacteriophages. As we expand from isolating and studying mycobacteriophages to actinobacteriophages, the careful “piloting” of new actinobacterial hosts can facilitate this process. Here, we present data from piloting several actinobacterial hosts, the most recent being Gordonia rubripertincta and Microbacterium testaceum. This data is presented in contrast to working with Mycobacterium smegmatis. Come see why making the switch to working with Actinobacteria other than M. smegmatis is easy, cheap, and scientifically rewarding.

New DNA Isolation Protocol: When a titer greater than 10<sup>9</sup> pfu/ml cannot be obtained for a phage lysate, the lysate can be concentrated by precipitating phage. This is typically done using PEG. Here, we compare and contrast an adapted protocol for precipitating phage using zinc chloride to that using PEG. Phage precipitation with zinc chloride is faster and less cumbersome than when using PEG, but requires some tricks. Come to our poster to learn more.