Matters Microbial #119: Investigating Microbial "Dark Matter"
Update: 2025-12-22
Description
Matters Microbial #119: Investigating Microbial "Dark Matter"
December 22, 2025Today Dr. Julia Willett, Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Minnesota, joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss how to investigate unknown genes found in nearly every bacterial genome. Call it Microbial Dark Matter!
Host: Mark O. Martin
Guest: Julia Willett
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Links for this episode
- Microbial "Dark Matter"—unknown genes in microbial genomes.
- The process of annotation.
- An article about the "Y-ome" or understanding "uncharacterized" genes.
- The smallest independently growing (and engineered) bacterium, JCVI-syn3.0. It still has many "uncharacterized" but necessary genes.
- An essay on Enterococcus faecalis.
- Diseases caused by Enterococcus.
- The concept of the pathobiont.
- Dr. Arturo Casadevall's thoughts on the term "pathogen."
- The use of transposon mutagenesis to create "knock outs" of bacterial genes.
- Array transposon mutagenesis. Here is an article coauthored by Dr. Willett on that topic.
- The Alpha Fold program for predicting gene function.
- A webinar describing "Microbial Dark Matter" by Dr. Willett.
- Dr. Willett's faculty website.
- Dr. Willett's laboratory website.
Intro music is by Reber Clark
Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com
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