Evolution@Vanderbilt

Abigail joined the CoEvoD program in 2025 as a third-year ESI CoEvoD fellow.

Abigail’s work takes a computationally informed, systems-level approach to this problem. By integrating chemoproteomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomics into a genome-scale metabolic model, coupled with experimental evolution and genetic engineering, Abigail is dissecting how oxygen perturbs key metabolic pathways in the gut symbiont Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. She has mined the outlined multi-omics dataset, identified candidate oxygen vulnerabilities in key metabolic pathways, and subsequently engineered B. thetaiotaomicron with restored central metabolism that exhibits remarkable oxygen resilience, including mutants capable of tolerating oxygen levels more than 300-fold higher than those of the wild type. Strikingly, these mutants also displayed >1,000-fold fitness advantage over wild type in the oxygenated, inflamed intestine. Together, these studies not only illuminate the evolutionary constraints on anaerobes but also establish a framework for predicting and engineering microbial adaptation under selective pressures, a theme central to the CoEvoD training program.

Publications

Singla, D., Rose, A.E. and Zhu, W., 2025. Small intestine changes, large intestine problems. Trends in Microbiology. 33(3), pp. 255-257.

Rose, A.E., Fansler, R.T. and Zhu, W., 2025. Commensal resilience: ancient ecological lessons for the modern microbiota. Infection and Immunity, 93(6), pp. e00502-24.

Dodelin, J.K., Rose, A.E., Rajpurohit, H. and Eiteman, M.A., 2025. Increased Mevalonate Production Using Engineered Citrate Synthase and Phosphofructokinase Variants of Escherichia coli. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 122(3), pp. 548-560.