WELCOME TO THE MITCHELL LAB

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE UNDER STRESS

The outer layer of the gram-negative bacterial cellular envelope contains an outer membrane (OM), which surrounds the bacteria and protects it from the environment. The OM is largely impermeable to both large and hydrophobic molecules, leading to the intrinsic resistance of gram-negative bacteria to many antibiotics. In fact, this makes gram-negative bacteria inherently orders of magnitude more resistant to many antibiotics than gram-positive bacteria. Due to this permeability barrier, the last new class of antibiotics treating gram-negative infections was developed in the 1960’s.

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Given the importance of the OM for antibiotic resistance, it is imperative to clarify the mechanisms of OM maintenance and adaptation during stress. The overarching goal of our lab is to characterize changes that occur to the OM permeability barrier during times of stress and the mechanisms behind those changes. We use both genetic and biochemical tools to address this goal.

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Please check out our research page for more details.