Kathryn Beabout

Annually over 2 million Americans acquire a drug resistant infection, resulting in at least 23,000 deaths. Drug resistance can occur anywhere, but is frequently associated with the health care setting. A leading cause of health care associated infections is Enterococcus faecalis, a Gram-positive commensal colonizer of the human gut and an opportunistic pathogen. In some cases E. faecalis infections are resistant to many, if not all, available antibiotics.

The antibiotic tigecycline is a third generation tetracycline with efficacy against multi-drug resistant E. faecalis. My project uses experimental evolution to reconstruct the adaptive pathways leading to tigecycline resistance in E. faecalis as they would occur in a hospital setting. By studying the evolutionary pathways leading to resistance I will identify which molecular changes are most important for conferring resistance. These insights would then aid in developing strategies to maintain the effectiveness of tigecycline against these highly adaptive pathogens.

Publications

Hammerstrom TG, Beabout K, Clements TP, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. Acinetobacter baumannii repeatedly evolves a hypermutator phenotype in response to tigecycline that effectively surveys evolutionary trajectories to resistance. PLOS one (in press)

Beabout K, Hammerstrom TG, Perez A, Magalhaes B, Prater A, Clements TP, Arias C, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. "The ribosomal S10 protein is a general target for decreased tigecycline susceptibility." Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 2015 Jun 29.

Beabout K, Hammerstrom TG, Wang TT, Bhatty M, Christie PJ, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. "Rampant parasexuality evolves in a hospital pathogen during antibiotic selection." Mol Biol Evol. 2015 Jun 9.

Nicolaou, K.C., Hale, C.R.H., Nilewski, C., Ioannidou, H.A., ElMarrouni, A., Nilewski, L.G., Beabout, K., Wang, T.T., and Shamoo, Y. "Total Synthesis of Viridicatumtoxin B and Analogues Thereof: Strategy Evolution, Structural Revision, and Biological Evaluation." Journal of the American Chemical Society." J Am Chem Soc. 2014 Aug 27.

Kathryn Beabout, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Keck Hall, Room 335
BioSciences Department 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005
Email: KRB5@rice.edu
Ph: 713-348-2220
Annually over 2 million Americans acquire a drug resistant infection, resulting in at least 23,000 deaths. Drug resistance can occur anywhere, but is frequently associated with the health care setting. A leading cause of health care associated infections is Enterococcus faecalis, a Gram-positive commensal colonizer of the human gut and an opportunistic pathogen. In some cases E. faecalis infections are resistant to many, if not all, available antibiotics. The antibiotic tigecycline is a third generation tetracycline with efficacy against multi-drug resistant E. faecalis. My project uses experimental evolution to reconstruct the adaptive pathways leading to tigecycline resistance in E. faecalis as they would occur in a hospital setting. By studying the evolutionary pathways leading to resistance I will identify which molecular changes are most important for conferring resistance. These insights would then aid in developing strategies to maintain the effectiveness of tigecycline against these highly adaptive pathogens. Publications Hammerstrom TG, Beabout K, Clements TP, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. Acinetobacter baumannii repeatedly evolves a hypermutator phenotype in response to tigecycline that effectively surveys evolutionary trajectories to resistance. PLOS one (in press) Beabout K, Hammerstrom TG, Perez A, Magalhaes B, Prater A, Clements TP, Arias C, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. "The ribosomal S10 protein is a general target for decreased tigecycline susceptibility." Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 2015 Jun 29. Beabout K, Hammerstrom TG, Wang TT, Bhatty M, Christie PJ, Saxer G, Shamoo Y. "Rampant parasexuality evolves in a hospital pathogen during antibiotic selection." Mol Biol Evol. 2015 Jun 9. Nicolaou, K.C., Hale, C.R.H., Nilewski, C., Ioannidou, H.A., ElMarrouni, A., Nilewski, L.G., Beabout, K., Wang, T.T., and Shamoo, Y. "Total Synthesis of Viridicatumtoxin B and Analogues Thereof: Strategy Evolution, Structural Revision, and Biological Evaluation." Journal of the American Chemical Society." J Am Chem Soc. 2014 Aug 27.