Alegado, Rosie
Research Interests
The focus of our research is to understand how bacteria have influenced the evolution of animals and how these interactions impact their ecosystem. Our group’s approach is to study the interaction between choanoflagellates, heterotrophic nanoflagellates which are the closest living relatives of animals, and their microbial community. We have established the colonial choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta and its prey bacterium Algoriphagus as a new system in which to test hypotheses about the evolution of interkingdom signaling. Our goal is to elucidate the nature and function of the microbial signals that elicit morphogenic responses in choanoflagellates and how these signals impact the cell biology of other members of the microbial community.