Speaker
Description
Caenorhabditis elegans is an important model organism in biology and medicine. Despite its wide use, the microbiome of this nematode has generally not been taken into consideration. Recent efforts have characterized the native microbiome of wild C. elegans. Zimmerman et al. developed 77 metabolic models of the bacterial microbiota members associated with C. elegans in a natural setting using whole-genome sequences. They characterized the types of interactions that occur between the members of the microbiome, but most specific molecular interactions are still unknown. This project aims to systematically identify these host-microbiome interactions on genome-scale metabolic models, as well as context-specific metabolic models by investigating the role of individual reactions and genes in this metabolic relationship using a combination of established metabolic modelling methods such as Flux Balance Analysis (FVA), Flux Variability Analysis (FVA), and Reaction / Gene Deletion Analysis.
