Dr Elizabeth (Beth) McGraw

Beth McGraw

Larkins Fellow
PhD (Pennsylvania State University)

Position: Senior Lecturer
Email: beth.mcgraw@monash.edu

  
Research interests

My laboratory is interested in understanding the evolution of insect:microbe interactions from the perspective of the insect host. We commonly use Drosophila as a model to study bacteria that range from mutualists to pathogens. In a more applied context we are also studying the effects of a bacterial symbiont on mosquitoes that is being developed for biocontrol against dengue virus (see www.eliminatedengue.org). We use a combination of molecular biology, genomics, and experimental approaches to examine

  • the insect immune response to microbial infection
  • the relationship between infection and insect fitness
  • the genetic basis of insect resistance to disease
  • the behavioral and physiological consequences of symbiont infection for insects
Selected Publications

McGraw EA, O'Neill SL. Beyond insecticides: new thinking on an ancient problem. Nat Rev Microbiol 2013 Mar;11(3):181-93.

Turley AP, Zalucki MP, O'Neill SL, McGraw EA. Transinfected Wolbachia have minimal effects on male reproductive success in Aedes aegypti.  Parasite Vector 2013 Feb 11;6(1):36.

Duplouy A, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, Beatson SA, Szubert JM, Brownlie JC, McMeniman CJ, McGraw EA, Hurst GD, Charlat S, O Neill SL, Woolfit M. Draft genome sequence of the male-killing Wolbachia strain wBol1 reveals recent horizontal gene transfers from diverse sources. BMC Genomics 2013 Jan 16;14(1):20.  

Rances, E,  Ye, YH, Woolfit, M, McGraw, EA, O'Neill SL, 2012. The Relative importance of innate immune priming in Wolbachia-mediated pathogen blocking. PLoS Pathog 8:e1002548.

Hoffmann AA, Montgomery BL, Popovici J, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, Johnson PH, Muzzi F, Greenfield M, Durkan M, Leong YS, Dong Y, Cook H, Axford J, Callahan AG, Kenny N, Omodei C, McGraw EA, Ryan PA, Ritchie SA, Turelli M, O'Neill SL, 2011. Successful establishment of Wolbachia in Aedes populations to suppress dengue transmission. Nature 476: 454-U107.

McGraw EA, Ye YH, Foley B, Chenoweth SF, Higgie M, Hine E, Blows MW, 2011. High-dimensional variance partitioning reveals the modular genetic basis of adaptive divergence in gene expression during reproductive character displacement. Evolution 65: 3126-3137.

Caragata EP, Poinsignon A, Moreira LA, Johnson PH, Leong YS, Ritchie SA, O'Neill SL, McGraw EA, 2011. Improved accuracy of the transcriptional profiling method of age grading in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes under laboratory and semi-field cage conditions and in the presence of Wolbachia infection. Insect Mol Biol 20: 215-224.

Cook PE, McGraw EA, 2010. Wolbachia pipientis: an expanding bag of tricks to explore for disease control. Trends Parasitol 26: 373-375.

Evans O, Caragata EP, McMeniman CJ, Woolfit M, Green DC, Williams CR, Franklin CE, O'Neill SL, McGraw EA, 2009. Increased locomotor activity and metabolism of Aedes aegypti infected with a life-shortening strain of Wolbachia pipientis. J Exp Biol 212: 1436-1441.

Brownlie JC, Cass BN, Riegler M, Witsenburg JJ, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, McGraw EA, O'Neill SL, 2009. Evidence for Metabolic Provisioning by a Common Invertebrate Endosymbiont, Wolbachia pipientis, during Periods of Nutritional Stress. PloS Pathog 5:e1000368.

Frentiu FD, Adamski M, McGraw EA, Blows MW, Chenoweth SF, 2009. An expressed sequence tag (EST) library for Drosophila serrata, a model system for sexual selection and climatic adaptation studies. BMC Genomics 10:40.

Moreira LA, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, Jeffery JA, Lu G, Pyke AT, Hedges LM, Rocha BC, Hall-Mendelin S, Day A, Riegler M, Hugo LE, Johnson KN, Kay BH, McGraw EA, van den Hurk AF, Ryan PA, O'Neill SL, 2009. A Wolbachia Symbiont in Aedes aegypti Limits Infection with Dengue, Chikungunya, and Plasmodium. Cell 139: 1268-1278.

Ye YH, Chenoweth SF, McGraw EA, 2009. Effective but Costly, Evolved Mechanisms of Defense against a Virulent Opportunistic Pathogen in Drosophila melanogaster. PloS Pathog 5:e1000385

Moreira LA, Saig E, Turley AP, Ribeiro JMC, O'Neill SL, McGraw EA, 2009. Human probing behavior of Aedes aegypti when infected with a life-shortening strain of Wolbachia. PloS Negl Trop Dis 3:e568.

Turley AP, Moreira LA, O'Neill SL, McGraw EA, 2009. Wolbachia Infection Reduces Blood-Feeding Success in the Dengue Fever Mosquito, Aedes aegypti. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 3:e516.

Woolfit M, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, McGraw EA, O'Neill SL, 2009. An Ancient Horizontal Gene Transfer between Mosquito and the Endosymbiotic Bacterium Wolbachia pipientis. Mol Biol Evol 26: 367-374.

McMeniman CJ, Lane AM, Fong AWC, Voronin DA, Iturbe-Ormaetxe I, Yamada R, McGraw EA, O'Neill SL, 2008. Host Adaptation of a Wolbachia Strain after Long-Term Serial Passage in Mosquito Cell Lines. Appl Environ Microb 74: 6963-6969.

Peng Y, Nielsen JE, Cunningham JP, McGraw EA, 2008. Wolbachia infection alters olfactory-cued locomotion in Drosophila spp. Appl Environ Microb 74: 3943-3948.

Brownlie JC, Adamski M, Slatko B, McGraw EA, 2007. Diversifying selection and host adaptation in two endosymbiont genomes. BMC Evol Biol 7:68.

McGraw EA, O'Neill SL, 2007. Wolbachia: Invasion biology in South Pacific butterflies. Current Biology 17: R220-R221.

Glazov EA, Pheasant M, McGraw EA, Bejerano G, Mattick JS, 2005. Ultraconserved elements in insect genomes: A highly conserved intronic sequence implicated in the control of homothorax mRNA splicing. Genome Res 15: 800-808.

Wu M, Sun LV, Vamathevan J, Riegler M, Deboy R, Brownlie JC, McGraw EA, Martin W, Esser C, Ahmadinejad N, Wiegand C, Madupu R, Beanan MJ, Brinkac LM, Daugherty SC, Durkin AS, Kolonay JF, Nelson WC, Mohamoud Y, Lee P, Berry K, Young MB, Utterback T, Weidman J, Nierman WC, Paulsen IT, Nelson KE, Tettelin H, O'Neill SL, Eisen JA, 2004. Phylogenomics of the reproductive parasite Wolbachia pipientis wMel: A streamlined genome overrun by mobile genetic elements. PloS Biol 2: 327-341.

McGraw EA, Merritt DJ, Droller JN, O'Neill SL, 2002. Wolbachia density and virulence attenuation after transfer into a novel host. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99: 2918-2923.
Currently Funded Projects

Natural variation and genetic basis of dengue virus transmission rate in Australian mosquitoes
Grant Body: NHMRC
Period: 2011-2014

The genomics of adaptation in Wolbachia pipientis, an emerging biocontrol
Grant Body: ARC Discovery Grant
Period: 2010-2014

NHMRC Asia Pacific Centre for Innovative Dengue Prevention
Grant body: NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence Grant
Period: 2010-2014
Research Areas Available for Student Projects
  • Development of a symbiotic bacterium for use in preventing dengue virus transmission in the mosquito, Aedes aegypti
  • The genetic basis of mosquito susceptibility to and transmissibility of dengue virus
  • The coevolution of insects and their microbial flora