Determining specific bacterial roles on butyrate
production in synthetic communities
Butyrate levels between female gnotobiotic mice inoculated with synthetic bacterial communities. No differences in butyrate were observed between the communities. The cecal-fecal butyrate values were transformed by natural logarithm; positive values indicate more cecal butyrate relative to fecal butyrate and vice versa for negative values.
My role in this collaborative research study is to measure short-chain fatty acids from mice inoculated with synthetic communities designed to produce butyrate. This work is led by Dr. Erin Ostrem Loss, a research associate in Dr. Ophelia Venturelli’s lab group. The objective of this study is to determine how specific bacterial taxa in synthetic communities interact and shape butyrate production with in vitro and in vivo models.
My contributions for this research is experimental design planning, leading the sample collection team for the in vivo studies, and quantifying and analyzing the butyrate measurements from the samples.