Souvik BhattacharyyaUniversity of Texas at Austin | UT · Department of Molecular Biosciences
Souvik Bhattacharyya
Ph.D.
About
9
Publications
2,593
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69
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Additional affiliations
June 2021 - present
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- My work focuses on antibiotic resistance in bacterial swarms. Many bacterial swarms display a temporary, non-mutational, and reversible resistance to antibiotics in a phenomenon called as ‘adaptive resistance. Currently, I am working on to elucidate the evolutionary mechanism and significance of this temporary resistance in relation to its ability to make the population gain genetic resistance.
August 2015 - April 2016
Education
August 2007 - July 2015
August 2005 - July 2007
August 2002 - July 2005
Vivekananda Mahavidyalaya
Field of study
- Zoology
Publications
Publications (9)
Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) have been important in shaping biomolecular evolution. Initiator tRNAs (tRNAi), a special class of tRNAs, carry methionine (or its derivative, formyl-methionine) to ribosomes to start an enormously energy consuming but a highly regulated process of protein synthesis. The processes of tRNAi evolution, and selection of methionin...
Swarming is a form of collective bacterial motion enabled by flagella on the surface of semi-solid media. Swarming populations exhibit non-genetic or adaptive resistance to antibiotics, despite sustaining considerable cell death. Here, we show that antibiotic-induced death of a sub-population benefits the swarm by enhancing adaptive resistance in t...
Efflux is a common mechanism of resistance to antibiotics. We show that efflux itself promotes accumulation of antibiotic-resistance mutations (ARMs). This phenomenon was initially discovered in a bacterial swarm where the linked phenotypes of high efflux and high mutation frequencies spatially segregated to the edge, driven there by motility. We h...
How antibiotic-resistance mutations survive Darwinian forces in the absence of antibiotics is a long-standing question. We report an unexpected evolutionary phenomenon we call ‘phenotype surfing’ wherein twin phenotypes - high mutation frequencies and high efflux - segregate at the advancing edge of moving E. coli swarms. These phenotypes are linke...
Swarming is form of collective bacterial motion enabled by flagella on the surface of semi-solid media1. Many bacterial species exhibit non-genetic adaptive resistance to a broad range of antibiotics only when swarming (SR)2-4. While the swarming population as a whole survives antibiotic challenge, it nonetheless sustains considerable cell death5....
Bacteria respond to stressful growth conditions through a conserved phenomenon of stringent response mediated by synthesis of stress alarmones ppGpp and pppGpp [referred to as (p)ppGpp]. (p)ppGpp synthesis is known to occur by ribosome-associated RelA. In addition, a dual-function protein, SpoT (with both synthetase and hydrolase activities), maint...
Initiator tRNAs (i-tRNAs) are characterized by the presence of three consecutive GC base pairs (GC/GC/GC) in their anticodon stems in all domains of life. However, many mycoplasmas possess unconventional i-tRNAs wherein the highly conserved sequence of GC/GC/GC is represented by AU/GC/GC, GC/GC/GU or AU/GC/GU. These mycoplasmas also tend to prefere...
Translation of mRNAs is the primary function of the ribosomal machinery. Although cells allow for a certain level of translational errors/mistranslation (which may well be a strategic need), maintenance of the fidelity of translation is vital for the cellular function and fitness. The P-site bound initiator tRNA selects the start codon in an mRNA a...
Aging, a progressive deterioration of the physical functions necessary for survival and fertility, resulting from deleterious changes, is one of the most fundamental features of Eukaryotes. Bacteria are thought to be examples of organisms that do not age. They divide by binary fission, which is assumed to be a symmetrical division, such that both d...
Projects
Project (1)
There are multiple modes of bacterial dispersal in the environment. When faced with the challenge of moving on solid or semi-solid surfaces, many bacteria elicit an en masse flagellum-driven motility called swarming. This type of movement has been implicated in bacterial survival in hostile environments. For example, swarming bacteria can withstand exposure to antibiotics at concentrations that are lethal for bacteria swimming in bulk liquid. This phenomenon is called ‘adaptive resistance’, because it is non-genetic.The mechanism of this resistance is still unknown.
