Heitman Lab Members

Sheng Sun Post-Doctoral Fellow 320 CARL Building Box 3546 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710 Phone: 919.684.3036 Fax: 919.684.5458 Email: sheng.sun@duke.edu

I joined the Heitman lab as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in September 2009 after I obtained my PhD from McMaster University in Canada. My research will focus on the sexual reproduction in Cryptococcus grubii and Cryptococcus gattii. Specifically, I will be studying (i) the a-alpha mating within molecular groups (VGI, VGII and VGIII) of C. gattii, and (ii) alpha-alpha fruiting in C. grubii and C. gattii.

Publications

Sun, S., and J. Xu, 2009 Chromosomal rearrangements between serotype A and D strains in Cryptococcus neoformans. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5524.

Randhawa, H. S., T. Kowshik, A. Chowdhary, K. Preeti Sinha, Z. U. Khan, S. Sun and J. Xu, 2008 The expanding host tree species spectrum of Cryptococcus gattii and Cryptococcus neoformans and their isolations from surrounding soil in India. Med. Mycol. 18: 1-11.

Hiremath, S. S., A. Chowdhary, T. Kowshik, H. S. Randhawa, S. Sun and J. Xu, 2008 Long-distance dispersal and recombination in environmental populations of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii from India. Microbiology 154(Pt 5): 1513-24.

Sun, S., and J. Xu, 2007 Genetic analyses of a hybrid cross between serotypes A and D strains of the human pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. Genetics 177(3): 1475-86.

Yan, Z., S. Sun, M. Shahid and J. Xu, 2007 Environment factors can influence mitochondrial inheritance in the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans. Fungal Genet. Biol. 44(5): 315-22.

Yan, Z., C. Hull, S. Sun, J. Heitman and J. Xu, 2007 The mating type-specific homeodomain genes SXI1 alpha and SXI2a coordinately control uniparental mitochondrial inheritance in Cryptococcus neoformans. Curr. Genet. 51(3): 187-95.

Sun, S., H. Guo and J. Xu, 2006 Multiple gene genealogical analyses reveal both common and distinct population genetic patterns among replicons in the nitrogen-fixing bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. Microbiology 152: 3245-59.

Guo, H., S. Sun, T. Finan and J. Xu, 2005 Novel DNA sequences from Natural Strains of the Nitrogen-Fixing Symbiotic Bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 71(11): 7130-7138.

Yan, Z., C. Hull, J. Heitman, S. Sun and J. Xu, 2004 SXI1α controls uniparental mitochondrial inheritance in Cryptococcus neoformans. Current Biology 14(18): R743-R744.  

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