DUERKOP LAB
IMMUNOLOGY
&
MICROBIOLOGY
@ CU ANSCHUTZ

The Duerkop Lab would like to thank the following funding sources



RESEARCH
The Duerkop lab studies bacterial viruses (bacteriophages or phages) and their interactions with their hosts. The long-term goal of the Duerkop lab is to understand how phages and other forms of mobile DNA contribute to host-microbe interactions in the intestine and their overall impact on human health.
Our lab seeks to: 1) Determine the mechanisms underlying phage interactions with multidrug resistant enterococci and how phages impact enterococcal colonization of the intestine; 2) Understand how native CRISPR-Cas systems function as barriers to nucleic acid acquisition in the intestine and how CRISPR-Cas contributes to the genetic diversity and ecology of the microbiota; 3) Explore the role phage communities play in maintaining a healthy intestinal microbiota and assess whether intestinal phages can shape the composition of the microbiota leading to chronic intestinal inflammation.

PUBLICATIONS
2021
Mangalea MR, Paez-Espino D, Kieft KA, Chatterjee A, Seifert JA, Feser ML, Demoruelle MK, Chriswell ME, Sakatos A, Anantharaman K, Deane KD, Kuhn KA, Holers VM, Duerkop BA. Individuals at risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis harbor differential intestinal bacteriophage communities with distinct metabolic potential. bioRxiv. availiable at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.03.429590
Canfield GS, Chatterjee A, Espinosa J, Mangalea MR, Sheriff EK, Keidan M, McBride SW, McCollister BD, Hang HC, Duerkop BA. Lytic bacteriophages facilitate antibiotic sensitization of Enterococcus faecium. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. In Press.
Kirsch JM, Brzozowski RS, Faith D, Round JL, Secor PR, Duerkop BA. Bacteriophage-bacteria interactions in the gut - from invertebrates to mammals. Annu Rev Virol. In Press.
Chatterjee A, Willett JLE, Dunny GM, Duerkop BA. Phage infection and sub-lethal antibiotic exposure mediate Enterococcus faecalis type VII secretion system dependent inhibition of bystander bacteria. PLoS Genet. 2021; 17(1):e1009204.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009204. PMID: 33411815 View in PubMed
Spencer BL, Chatterjee A, Duerkop BA, Baker CJ, Doran KS. Complete genome sequence of neonatal clinical group B streptococcal isolate CJB111. Microbiol Resour Announc. 2021;10(2):e01268-20. doi: 10.1128/MRA.01268-20. PMID:
33446593 View in PubMed
2020
Kleiner M, Bushnell B, Sanderson KE, Hooper LV and Duerkop BA. Transductomics: sequencing based detection and analysis of transduced DNA in pure cultures and microbial communities. Microbiome. 2020; 8(1):158.
doi: 10.1186/s40168-020-00935-5. PMID: 33190645 View in PubMed
Alhajjar N, Chatterjee A, Spencer BL, Burcham LR, Willett JLE, Dunny GM, Duerkop BA, Doran KS. Genome-wide mutagenesis identifies factors involved in Enterococcus faecalis vaginal adherence and persistence. Infect Immun. 2020; 88(10):e00270-20. doi: 10.1128/IAI.00270-20. PMID: 32778611 View in PubMed
Canfield GS and Duerkop BA. Molecular mechanisms of enterococcal-bacteriophage interactions and implications for human health. Curr Opin Microbiol. 2020; 56:38-44. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2020.06.003. PMID: 32652484 View in PubMed
Morrisette T, Lev KL, Kebriaei R, Abdul-Mutakabbir J, Stamper KC, Morales S, Lehman SM, Canfield GS, Duerkop BA, Arias CA, Rybak MJ. Bacteriophage-antibiotic combinations for Enterococcus faecium with varying bacteriophage and daptomycin susceptibilities. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2020; 64(9):e00993-20. doi: 10.1128/AAC.00993-20 PMID: 32571816 View in PubMed
Chatterjee A, Willett JLE, Nguyen UT, Monogue B, Palmer KL, Dunny GM, Duerkop BA. Parallel genomics uncover novel enterococcal-bacteriophage interactions. mBio. 2020; 11:e03120-19. doi: 10.1128/mBio.03120-19. PMID: 32127456
Mangalea MR and Duerkop BA. Fitness trade-offs resulting from bacteriophage resistance potentiate synergistic antibacterial strategies. Infect Immun. 2020;88(7). doi: 10.1128/IAI.00926-19. PMID: 32094257 View in PubMed
2019
Johnson CN and Duerkop BA. Dyeing to connect. Nat Microbiol. 2019;4(12):2033-2034. doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0616-1. PMID: 31754272. View in PubMed
Rodrigues M, McBride SW, Hullahalli K, Palmer KL and Duerkop BA. Conjugative delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 for the selective depletion of antibiotic-resistant enterococci. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2019;63(11). doi: 10.1128/AAC.01454-19. PMID: 31527030. View in PubMed
Price VJ, McBride SW, Hullahalli K, Chatterjee A, Duerkop BA, Palmer KL. Enterococcus faecalis CRISPR-Cas is a robust barrier to conjugative antibiotic resistance dissemination in the murine intestine. mSphere. 2019;4(4). doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00464-19. PMID: 31341074. View in PubMed
Chatterjee A, Johnson CN, Luong P, Hullahalli K, McBride SW, Schubert AM, Palmer KL, Carlson PE Jr and Duerkop BA. Bacteriophage resistance alters antibiotic-mediated intestinal expansion of enterococci. Infect Immun. 2019;87(6). doi: 10.1128/IAI.00085-19. PMID: 30936157. View in PubMed
Chatterjee A and Duerkop BA. Sugar and fatty acids Ack-celerate prophage induction. Cell Host Microbe. 2019;25(2):175-176. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2019.01.012. PMID: 30763529. View in PubMed
2018
Duerkop BA. Bacteriophages shift the focus of the mammalian microbiota. PLoS Pathog. 2018;14(10):e1007310. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1007310. PMID: 30359456. View in PubMed
Duerkop BA, Kleiner M, Paez-Espino D, Zhu W, Bushnell B, Hassell B, Winter SE, Kyrpides NC and Hooper LV. Murine colitis reveals a disease-associated bacteriophage community. Nat Microbiol. 2018;3(9):1023-1031. doi: 10.1038/s41564-018-0210-y. PMID: 30038310. View in PubMed
Chatterjee A and Duerkop BA. Beyond Bacteria: Bacteriophage-eukaryotic host interactions reveal emerging paradigms of health and disease. Front Microbiol. 2018;9:1394. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.01394. PMID: 29997604. View in PubMed
PEOPLE

Breck Duerkop (Assistant Professor, Co-Director - CU Anschutz Microbiology Graduate Program)
Breck received his BS in Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Washington. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Breck joined the faculty in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in December 2016.

Anushila Chatterjee (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Anushila attended the University of Calcutta, India where she obtained both a BS and MS in Microbiology. She received a PhD in Biochemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research focuses on E. faecalis-phage interactions and the study of phage auxiliary genes.

Mike Mangalea (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Mike attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill where he received a BA in Biology. He conducted his PhD work in Microbiology at Colorado State University. Mike's research combines culture based methods and metagenomics for the study of intestinal viruses and aims to explore the utility of phages as biomarkers of intestinal disease.

Greg Canfield (Infectious Disease Fellow)
Greg earned a BS in Biochemistry from Niagara University and completed MD, PhD training in Microbiology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Scripps Green Hospital/Scripps Clinic and is now an Infectious Disease Fellow at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Greg is studying the molecular interactions between phages and multidrug resistant clinical isolates of E. faecium.
Cydney Johnson (PhD Student)
Cydney attended Rhodes College where she earned a BS in Biology and a minor in Spanish. She joined the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2017. Cydney's research focuses on the biochemistry of enterococcal phage receptors and mechanisms of enterococcal transmission among mammalian hosts.

Josh Kirsch (PhD Student)
Josh received a BS in Biochemistry from Western Washington University. He joined the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program in 2019. His projects focus on how phage infection influences mobile elements in the E. faecalis genome and how the lung virome is shaped following stem cell transplantation in humans.
Emma Sheriff (PhD Student)
Emma attended the University of Alabama where she earned a BS in Biology with a minor in the Randall Research Scholars Program. She joined the Microbiology Graduate Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2019. Emma's interests fall within the scope of phage-host interactions and their impact on T7SS gene regulation and antagonism.
Lab Alumni
Jason Hickman (Visiting Scientist, 2017)
Current position: Research Director of Biotechnology and Ethanol, Archer Daniels Midland (AMD), Decatur, IL.
Phat Luong (Master's Student, 2017-2018)
Current position: Medical School, Ross University, Barbados
Sara McBride (Lab Manager, 2017-2019)
Current position: Laboratory Coordinator, Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA.
Viviane Schink (Visiting Master's Student, 2019)
Current position: Process Engineer at Elanco, Cuxhaven, Germany
Micah Keidan (Lab Manager, 2019-2020)
Current position: Laboratory Technician, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
CONTACT
The Duerkop Lab is located at the University of Colorado School of Medicine's Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado, 8 miles from downtown Denver and 20 miles from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains
12800 E. 19th Ave.
Research Complex I
P18-9402D
Aurora, CO, 80045
Tel: 303-724-0940
Fax: 303-724-4226