DUKE MYCOLOGY RESEARCH UNIT
Faculty and Research

Heitman Lab Members

Xuying Wang Post-Doctoral Fellow 312 CARL Building Box 3546 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710  Phone: 919.684.9702 Fax: 919.684.5458 Email: xuying.wang@duke.edu

I am originally from China. In the fall of 2003, I went to Marquette University, in Wisconsin, where I received my doctoral training under the supervision of Dr. James Anderson. My thesis was focused on identification and characterization of a three-protein complex, Trf4p-Air2p-Mtr4p (TRAMP) complex in S. cerevisiae, which is involved in a new identified RNA surveillance pathway. In my study, I found that effective turnover of many incorrectly processed RNAs, including hypomodified tRNAiMet, required the TRAMP complex, which appends a short polyA tail to the RNA designated for decay that stimulates RNA degradation by the exosome. I also biochemically characterized Mtr4p as a RNA helicase and demonstrated that its helicase activity is necessary for the RNA degradation processes.

After receiving my Ph.D. degree in December 2008, I joined the Heitman lab in January 2009 and switched my focus from baker’s yeast to pathogenic fungi. Now I am interested in the RNAi pathway in Cryptococcus and also I am characterizing certain conserved genes at mating locus in Cryptococcus.

Publications

Jia H, Wang X, Liu F, Guenther UP, Srinivasan S, Anderson JT, Jankowsky E. 2011. The RNA helicase Mtr4p modulates polyadenylation in the TRAMP complex. Cell 10:145:890-901.

Wang X*, Hsueh YP*, Li W, Floyd A, Skalsky R, Heitman J. 2010. Sex-induced RNA silencing defends the genome of Crypotococcus neoformans via RNAi. Genes & Dev. 24:2566-2582. (*co-first author)

Anderson JT, Wang X. 2009. Nuclear RNA surveillance: no sign of substrates tailing off. Crit Rev Biochem Mol Biol 44:16-24.

Ozanick S, Wang X, Costanzo M, Brost R, Boone C, Anderson JT. 2009. Rex1p deficiency leads to accumulation of initiator tRNAMet and polyadenylation of substrate RNAs in S. cerevisiae. Nucleic Acids Research 37:298-308.

Wang X, Jia H, Jankowsky E, Anderson JT. 2007. Degradation of hypomodified tRNAiMet in vivo involves RNA-dependent ATPase activity of the DExH helicase Mtr4p. RNA 14:107-16.

Kadaba S, Wang X, Anderson JT. 2006. Nuclear RNA surveillance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Trf4p-dependent polyadenylation of nascent hypomethylated tRNA and an aberrant form of 5S rRNA. RNA 12:508-21.

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