# Determinants of Microbiome Stability Following Pathogen Infection

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA · 2024 · $181,874

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY - Determinants of Microbiome Stability Following Pathogen Infection
The human microbiome (i.e., the consortium of microbes that reside in and on the body) affects human health
and development. Microbiome composition (the microbial species that are present) and diversity (the number
of species) can affect microbiome function. Disturbances such as antibiotics, dietary shifts, environmental
stress or pathogen infection can cause changes (perturbations) in the microbiome, which can affect
microbiome function and human health. The impacts of disturbances on the microbiome and human health can
be mitigated by microbiome stability, which is the microbiome’s capacity to maintain stable structure (diversity
and composition) and function despite disturbances. Understanding the factors that control microbiome stability
is therefore important for human health. Infectious disease and temperature stress are two disturbances of
growing concern to human health due to recurring disease outbreaks and human-induced climate change. The
long-term goal of the proposed research is to understand how climate and disease affect the microbiome and
what factors control microbiome resistance and resilience to these disturbances. The specific aims are: (1) to
determine how microbiome diversity and composition affect microbiome stability during pathogen infection; (2)
to determine how long-term temperature change affects the microbiome’s response to pathogen infection. The
project will leverage the model organism Drosophila melanogaster for its tractability and relevance to human
health and wild Drosophila species for their diversity and ecological realism. In Specific Aim 1, Hawaiian
Drosophila species, which have naturally diverse microbiomes, will be used to identify relationships between
microbiome structure (diversity and composition) and stability during infection by a bacterial pathogen. Next,
causal relationships between microbiome structure and stability will be tested by manipulating the microbiome
of D. melanogaster and exposing the flies to the pathogen. Specific Aim 2 will use populations of a single
Drosophila species, which have naturally evolved under different temperatures, to test if adaptation to
temperature affects how the microbiome and host respond to pathogen infection. In both specific aims,
microbiome structure will be measured by DNA sequencing of microbial phylogenetic markers (16S, ITS),
which identify the microbial taxa present and their relative abundances. Microbiome function will be assessed
using shotgun metagenomics and transcriptomics, which predict functional capacity based on gene
orthologues. Pathogen-induced microbiome perturbation will be measured as the change (before and after
infection) in microbiome structure and function. Stability is the inverse of perturbation, i.e., the ability to avoid
change despite disturbance. Effects of microbiome structure on stability will be determined by testing how
microbiome structure p...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10890823
- **Project number:** 5P20GM125508-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA
- **Principal Investigator:** Andrea Jani
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $181,874
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-15 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10890823

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10890823, Determinants of Microbiome Stability Following Pathogen Infection (5P20GM125508-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10890823. Licensed CC0.

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