Date Approved

2026

Degree Type

Open Access Senior Honors Thesis

Department or School

Biology

First Advisor

Katherine Greenwald, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Aaron Liepman, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Natalie Dove, Ph.D.

Abstract

As antibiotic resistance continues to pose a significant threat to public health, discovery of novel antibiotics could provide tools to combat this threat. Amphibian skin exhibits complex pathogen defense physiology and diverse skin microbiota, which suggests that it could be a potential source of novel antibiotics. A critical feature of amphibian skin is mucus, which is secreted as a defense mechanism and contains many immune system components such as symbiotic microbiota and antimicrobial peptides. To test the antibacterial properties of amphibian mucus, this study assesses whether mucus secretions from unisexual Ambystoma salamanders are effective at inhibiting the growth of safe relatives of antibiotic resistant ESKAPE pathogens. While mucus was ineffective at inhibiting growth among relatives of ESKAPE pathogens, some microbes that grew from Ambystoma mucus were identified by 16s rRNA sequencing. Pseudomonas appeared as a dominant bacterial taxon in the salamander secretions. The ineffectiveness of Ambystoma mucus against ESKAPE relatives suggests that the mucus secretions of these animals appear to be an ineffective treatment for the pathogens. Despite the current study finding no growth inhibition of ESKAPE pathogen relatives by salamander mucus samples, differing results of other similar studies indicate that alternative test strategies may be used to identify antibiotics from Ambystoma microbiomes.

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