Christopher Golden

Current Research Masters Student

Investigation of the therapeutic potential of secondary metabolites produced by Rasamsonia emersonii

Description: This project aims to explore the secondary metabolite profile of the thermophilic ascomycete Rasamsonia emersonii (formerly Talaromyces), by culturing the fungus under a range of conditions to induce secondary metabolite production and examining if these metabolites possess a useful therapeutic effect.

• Culture extracts from induction experiments will be tested on gram positive and negative microbial strains in addition to yeast via disc diffusion assays.
• Extracts will be tested on cancerous and healthy mammalian cell lines in a range of assays designed to examine different aspects of cancer growth and proliferation (e.g. colony formation assay, soft-agar overlay assay and scratch/wound or migration assays).
• Bioactive extracts will be analysed by LC-MS to identify lead compounds. These will be linked to their respective Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGC’s) via a bioinformatics approach.
• To enable confirmation and exploration of any BGC’s identified, a transformation system will be established in the fungus to allow for genetic manipulations and facilitate further research.