El próximo martes 25 de marzo inicia el ciclo de Seminarios Institucionales 2025.
Los esperamos a las 12.30h en el aula del piso 13 de FMED.
Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Kornelia Smalla del Julius Kühn-Institute, Federal Research Centre for cultivated Plants, Institute for Epidemiology and Pathogen Diagnostics de Alemania disertará sobre:
"One Health Antimicrobial Resistance - The Role of the Agroecosystem"
Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Kornelia Smalla was the head of the microbial ecology group in the Institute for Epidemiology and Pathogen Diagnostics at the Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, in Braunschweig. She studied chemistry and did her PhD in biochemistry at the Martin-Luther-University in Halle. The venia legendi for microbiology was obtained at the Technical University Braunschweig where she is an adjunct Professor for Microbiology. From the beginning of the 1990’s Kornelia Smalla contributed to the new field of molecular microbial ecology. The development of cultivation-independent methods to study microbial communities in complex environments and their response to pollutants such as antibiotics is a major theme of her work. Her long-term research interests are unraveling the factors that shape the transferable resistome and plasmid-mediated bacterial adaptation to changing environments.
Resumen:
Microorganisms drive biogeochemical ecosystems, maintain ecosystem stability and shape host physiology. Plasmids contribute to bacterial adaptability and diversity. It is however, mainly the accessory gene load of plasmids, that help their bacterial hosts to adapt to changing environmental condition, to survive in the presence of pollutants such as antibiotics, heavy metals or to degrade natural or synthetic chemicals. Plasmids can aid also their hosts to colonize new niches,e.g. in nodule forming rhizobia or in pathogenic bacteria. The environmental conditions (e.g. the presence of antibiotics) that foster horizontal gene transfer depend on the accessory gene load on the plasmids. The abundance of plasmids is tightly linked to the ecology of their hosts. The proliferation plasmids are often carried only by a small subpopulation that helps the whole population to rapidly adapt to changing environmental condition. Studies on the ecollogy of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and plasmid ecology largely profited from cultivation-independent DNA or RNA-based methods in combination with quantitative real-time PCR or metagenomics although we and others recognized their lack of sensitivity. Less abundant targets might remain under the radar and thus enrichment and selective cultivation remain important. In my talk, I will elucidate the role of organic fertilizers (manure, digestates and sewage sludge) and irrigation water in the dissemination of ARGs often located on plasmids. I will highlight the importance of fresh produce for the dissemination of multiresistant Enterobacteriaceae.
