Dr. Qingyun Liu (Assistant Professor) has been awarded a DP2 New Innovator Award from NIAID for his project titled “Population genomics-guided dissection of the bacterial genetic basis of tuberculosis transmissibility”.
The project aims are: (1) Identify mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) mutations derived from host-driven positive selection that are associated with increased TB transmission, as a means to define genetic determinants of highly transmissible (HT) and discover convergently mutated gene pathways in HT strains. (2) Characterize altered bacterial processes in HT strains by employing a bacterial physiological profiling system and assess growth fitness across different stress conditions. (3) Employ a panel of mouse models to characterize the infection stages in which HT strains outperform their phylogenetic neighboring low transmitters, and dissect the altered host-Mtb interactions by transcriptomic profiling of host responses following macrophage infection. The anticipated findings will uncover the genetic determinants of HT strains and the altered bacterial processes underlying the increased transmissibility of Mtb, which will facilitate the design of new therapeutics and vaccines to reduce TB transmission and thereby contribute to ending the global TB epidemic.