Chevrette Lab @ UW

Chevrette Lab

Research Overview

Research in the Chevrette Lab is focused broadly on secondary metabolism and how it relates to interspecies interactions.

We study secondary metabolism…​

in evolution

  • Genome mining, including the development of new computational tools to identify and characterize biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in microbial genomes

  • Diversity and distribution of BGCs and biosynthetic enzymes across evolutionary space

  • Ancestral reconstruction of biosynthetic domains, genes, and pathways

  • Evolutionary dynamics of enzyme specificity and promiscuity

in natural systems

  • Secondary metabolites and BGCs…​

    • from host-associated microbiomes, including amphibian skin, insect exoskeleton, and the rhizosphere

    • from soil bacteria, including those from Tiny Earth (see https://tinyearth.wisc.edu)

in experimental systems

  • Metatranscriptomics and metametabolomics of synthetic microbial communities

  • Genetic and regulatory mechanisms of secondary metabolite expression and interspecies interactions

  • Specificity of interactions across synthetic microbial communities