Staff Profile
Dr Giusy Mariano
Wellcome Research Fellow
- Email: giusy.mariano@ncl.ac.uk
- Address: Biosciences Institute
Cookson Building
Faculty of Medical Sciences
Newcastle University
Framlington Place
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 4HH
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1197-2123
Google Scholar profile :https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=L8zGnmcAAAAJ&hl=en
Bacteriophages (phages) outnumber bacteria in the environment. This selective pressure has driven bacteria to develop many anti-viral strategies and phages to evolve counter-measures. In recent years ~50 new antiphage systems have been discovered in bacterial genomes. Understanding this arms race is revealing exciting new areas of biology, and unexpected links between phage defence and the innate immune systems of animals and plants.
My research uses comparative genomics, genetics, biochemistry, single-cell microscopy and structural biology to discover new loci involved in phage defence and define the mechanistic details of their defence pathways, including understanding how interaction with phages triggers these systems and the downstream responses that lead to immunity. I am particularly focused on antiphage systems found in Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
- Garrett SR, Mariano G, Dicks J, Palmer T. Homologous recombination between tandem paralogues drives evolution of a subset of type VII secretion system immunity genes in firmicute bacteria. Microbial Genomics 2022, 8(8), 000868.
- Mariano G, Faba-Rodriguez R, Bui S, Zhao W, Ross J, Tzokov SB, Bergeron JRC. Oligomerization of the FliF Domains Suggests a Coordinated Assembly of the Bacterial Flagellum MS Ring. Frontiers in Microbiology 2022, 12, 781960.
- Mariano G, Farthing RJ, Lale-Farjat SLM, Bergeron JRC. Structural Characterization of SARS-CoV-2: Where We Are, and Where We Need to Be. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences 2020, 7, 605236.
- Mariano G, Trunk K, Williams D, Monlezun L, Strahl H, Pitt S, Coulthurst S. A family of Type VI secretion system effector proteins that form ion-selective pores. Nature Communications 2019, 10, 5484.
- Ostrowski A, Cianfanelli FR, Porter M, Mariano G, Peltier J, Wong JJ, Swedlow JR, Trost M, Coulthurst SJ. Killing with proficiency: Integrated post-translational regulation of an offensive Type VI secretion system. PLoS Pathogens 2018, 14(7), e1007230.
- Mariano G, Monlezun L, Coulthurst SJ. Dual Role for DsbA in Attacking and Targeted Bacterial Cells during Type VI Secretion System-Mediated Competition. Cell Reports 2018, 22(3), 774-785.
- Ulhuq FR, Mariano G. Bacterial pore-forming toxins. Microbiology 2022, 168(3), 001154.
- Macdonald E, Strahl H, Blower TR, Palmer T, Mariano G. Shield co-opts an RmuC domain to mediate phage defence across Pseudomonas species. Biorxiv 2022.