Heitman Lab Members

Soo Chan Lee, PhD Post-Doctoral Fellow 320 CARL Building Box 3546 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710 Phone: 919.684.3036 Fax: 919.684.5458 Email: soochan.lee@duke.edu

I trained with Dr. Brian Shaw at Texas A&M University as a PhD student. I was primarily interested in how Aspergillus nidulans, a filamentous fungus, establishes and maintains hyphal polarity. In this study, I investigated the role of protein lipidation, especially N-myristoylation, in the polarized growth of the fungus. After receiving my PhD in December 2007 from Texas A&M University, I relocated to Durham, NC, to join the Heitman laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow. Currently, my research is focused on understanding the sexual development of three different groups of human pathogenic of fungi: Cryptococcus neoformans, a basidiomycete, Mucor circinelloides, a zygomycete, and Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a microsporidian.

In the study of C. neoformans, I am interested in nuclear dynamics during mating and monokaryotic fruiting. The main question is how and when transitions in ploidy occur. In addition, the role of the diploid state, especially with alphaAAalpha isolates, is also of primary interest.

Second, I am studying the sex locus of the zygomycetes, a basal fungal lineage. Following the identification of the sex locus in Phycomyces blakesleeanus, a zygomycete (Idnurm et al. 2008. Nature), I found that the sex locus is conserved in other zygomycete species. The sex locus forms a syntenic gene cluster encoding with a triose phosphate transferase, HMG domain protein, and RNA helicase genes. The HMG domain proteins (SexP and SexM in plus and minus strain, respectively) are a key transcription factor defining sexual identity in zygomycetes (as in humans), and I am investigating the role of this protein during zygomycete mating.

Recently, I discovered that microsporidia share a syntenic sex locus with zygomycetes. To test the hypothesis that microsporidia may have an extant sexual cycle, I am working with several E. cuniculi isolates cultured in RK13 (rabbit kidney) cell lines to test whether I can observe a bona fide sexual cycle.

Publications
Kozubowski, L.*, Lee, Soo Chan*, and Heitman, J. Signaling pathways in the pathogenesis of Cryptococcus. Cellular Microbiology. Published on-line.

(*equal contributors)

Lee, Soo Chan, Corradi, N., Byrnes, E. J., Torres-Martinez, S., Dietrich, F.S., Keeling, P.J., and Heitman, J. 2008. Microsporidia evolved from ancestral sexual fungi. Current Biology. 2008. 18:1675-1679.

This paper was highlighted and commented on in:

Surridge, C. 2008. Sex and the parasitic fungi. Nature Review Microbiology. 6:873.

Dyer, P. 2008. Microsporidia sex--a missing link to fungi. Current Biology. 18:R1012-R1014.

Lee, Soo Chan and Shaw, B.D. 2008. ArfB links protein lipidation and endocytosis to polarized growth of Aspergillus nidulans. Communicative & Integrative Biology. 1:51-52.

Lee, Soo Chan, Schmidtke, S.N., Dangott, L. J., and Shaw, B.D. 2008. Aspergillus nidulans ArfB plays a role in endocytosis and polarized growth. Eukaryotic Cell.7:1278-1288.

Lee, Soo Chan and Shaw, B.D. 2008. Localization and function of ADP ribosylation factor A in Aspergillus nidulans. FEMS Microbiology Letters. 283:216-222.

Lee, Soo Chan and Shaw, B.D. 2007. A novel interaction between N-myristoylation and the 26S proteasome during cell morphogenesis. Molecular Microbiology. 63: 1054-1068.

Lee, S. J., Lee, Soo Chan, Choi, S. H., Chung, M. K, Rhie, H. G., and Lee, Ho Sa. 2001 Effect of ArsA, arsenite-specific ATPase, on inhibition on cell division in Escherichia coli. Journal of  Microbiology and Biotechnology. 11: 825-830.

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