My Research Project
I've already briefly discussed my research project in my Pulitzer Prize-winning blog post, "Me and My Lab," so I'll try to go into a bit more depth here. In the human gut exist biofilms, which, though once thought to be detrimental, actually exist in perfect harmony with the immune system. It is a symbiotic relationship, by which us humans obtain vitamin K and protection from disease, and the bacteria obtain a safe place to live. However, as a fetus, everything is not so hunky-dory. When you are born, there are no biofilms in your gut, and you don't usually consume large amounts of bacteria. Instead, you drink your mother's milk, which has a very low concentration of bacteria. The concentration is so low, in fact, that the IgA molecules that normally help to bind bacteria together completely cover the bacterial surfaces, and since IgA doesn't stick to other IgA, the bacteria don't stick to your gut, and you, in theory, would grow up to be a sickly, runty baby. However, this is not the case, so Dr. Parker (my lab's PI) has hypothesized that in milk there exists some protein that can bind IgA molecules to each other, and therefore help biofilms form even in low bacterial concentrations. Thus my project is investigating this protein and trying to determine some of its properties.
So far, I have been trying to aggregate bacteria in test tubes with plain IgA, milk, and BSA (as a control). Then I have carefully plated the bacteria and observed the colony formation that occurs. My results have so far confirmed that milk does indeed help bacteria to aggregate, in low concentrations, whereas plain IgA is ineffective at low concentrations. I will next be investigating whether the unknown protein in milk binds bacteria directly or whether it acts as an intermediary between IgA molecules.
