|
|
|||
|
|
Biography:
Helen J. Wing is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham (UK), where she used genetics to study the transcriptional control mechanisms in Escherichia coli. In her first post-doctoral position, she worked with Prof. Stephen J.W. Busby and Prof. John R. Guest, employing biochemical approaches to study transcription. When Helen moved to the U.S. to take a post-doctoral position with Marcia B. Goldberg M.D. at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, she became fascinated by the molecular events that control the transcription of Shigella virulence genes. She joined the University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty in 2005. |
|
|
Helen J. Wing, Ph.D.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas 4505 S. Maryland Parkway Las Vegas, NV 89154-4004 Office: Rm 307A Phone: (702) 895 5382 Fax: (702) 895 3956 Email: helen.wing@unlv.edu
|
|
||
|
Check out lab news on our Facebook page |
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
Graduate Student Openings |
Research focus:
The primary focus of my research laboratory is virulence gene expression in Shigella spp., causal agents of bacillary dysentery, which are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The large virulence plasmid of Shigella carries many genes required to cause disease in the human host, including those required for invasion, type III secretion, and actin-based motility. The latter allows bacteria to spread from one human cell to another. We are interested in the environmental cues, the timing, and the molecular events that trigger the expression of virulence genes. We are particularly interested in the complex interplay between nucleoid structuring proteins, and the transcriptional regulators of virulence plasmid genes in Shigella VirF and VirB.
|
||
|
Graduate Admissions (scroll to the bottom of the linked page) |
|||
|
|
|||
|
For more information about studying Microbiology at UNLV, click the logo at the top of this page |
|||
|
|
|||
Selected publications:
Link
to complete list of published work Gerson
TM, Ott AM, Karney MMA, Socea
JN, Ginete DR, Iyer LM,
Aravind L, Gary RK, Wing HJ. 2023. VirB, a key transcriptional
regulator of Shigella virulence, requires a CTP ligand for its
regulatory activities. mBIO. e01519-23.
https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01519-23. Received Editor’s Pick. Picker MA^, Karney
MMA^, Gerson TM, Karabachev AD, Duhart
JC, McKenna JA, and Wing HJ. 2023. Localized modulation of DNA
supercoiling, triggered by the Shigella anti-silencer VirB, is
sufficient to relieve H-NS-mediated silencing. Nucleic Acids Research. Feb
16: gkad088. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkad088.
PMID: 36794722. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad088 Socea JN, GR Bowman GR, Wing HJ. 2021. VirB, a key transcriptional regulator of virulence plasmid genes in Shigella flexneri, forms DNA-binding site-dependent foci in the bacterial cytoplasm. J Bacteriol. 203 (11), e00627-20 McKenna JA and Wing HJ. 2020. The antiactivator of type III secretion, OspD1, Is transcriptionally regulated by VirB and H-NS from Remote Sequences in Shigella flexneri. J Bacteriol 202 (10), e00072-20 Karney MMA, McKenna JA, Weatherspoon-Griffin N, Karabachev AD, Millar M, Potochek E and Wing HJ. 2019. Investigating the DNA-binding site for VirB, a key transcriptional regulator of Shigella virulence genes, using an in vivo binding tool. Genes 10 (2), 149 Weatherspoon‐Griffin N, Picker MA, Pew KL,
Park HS, Ginete DR, Karney
MMA, Usufzy P, Castellanos MI, Duhart JC, Harrison DJ, Socea
JN, Karabachev AD, Hensley
CT, Howerton AJ, Ojeda-Daulo R, Immak JA, Wing HJ. 2018. Insights into
transcriptional silencing and anti‐silencing in Shigella
flexneri: a detailed molecular analysis of the icsP virulence
locus. Mol. Micro 108 (5), 505-518 Picker MA and Wing HJ. 2016. H-NS, its family members and
their regulation of virulence genes in Weatherspoon-Griffin N and Wing HJ. 2016. Characterization of SlyA in Shigella flexneri identifies a novel role in virulence. Inf Immunity 84 (4), 1073-1082 Weatherspoon-Griffin N, Picker MA, and Wing HJ. 2016. The Genetic Organization and Transcriptional Regulation of Shigella Virulence Genes. In WD Picking and WL Picking (Eds). Shigella: Molecular and Cellular Biology. Cambridge, UK Caister Academic Press. Basta, DW, Pew KL, Immak JA, Park HS, Picker MA, Wigley AF, Hensley CT, Pearson JS, Hartland EL and Wing HJ. 2013. Characterization of the ospZ promoter in Shigella flexneri and its regulation by VirB & H-NS. J. Bacteriol 195: 2562-2572. Broach WH, Egan NR, Wing HJ, Payne SP and Murphy ER. 2012. VirF-independent regulation of Shigella virB transcription is mediated by the small RNA RyhB. PLoS ONE.7(6): e38592. Castellanos MI, Harrison DJ, Smith JM, Levy KM, Labahn SK and Wing HJ. 2009. VirB alleviates H-NS repression of the icsP promoter in Shigella flexneri from sites over 1 kb upstream of the transcription start site. J Bacteriol. 191: 4047-4050 |
|||
