Affiliations

• Translational Data Analytics Institute
• Interdisciplinary Biophysics Graduate Program

Awards

• Distinguished Lecturer, American Society for Microbiology, 2022
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2019
• Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology, 2017

Research Interests

We develop and apply computational genomics approaches to study molecular mechanisms and evolution of signal transduction. Our main focus is on prokaryotes, but we also study human genes that are implicated in diseases. Our credo is simple: Nature has already performed millions of genetic experiments; all we need to do is to carefully analyze the results. Most of our studies generate novel testable hypotheses that are often taken into experiment by our collaborators in "wet" laboratories.

Recent Publications

Andrianova EP, Dobbins AL, Erhardt M, Hendrixson DR*, Zhulin IB*. 2025. FliO is an evolutionarily conserved yet diversified core component of the bacterial flagellar type III secretion system.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 122: e2512476122.

Velando F, Xing J, Genova R, Cerna-Vargas JP, Vazquez-Santiago R, Matilla MA, Zhulin IB*, Krell T*. 2025.  Chemoreceptor family in plant-associated bacteria responds preferentially to the plant signal molecule glycerol 3-phosphate. Genome Biology 26: 260.

Xu W, Jalomo-Khayrova E, Gumerov VM, Ross PA, Koebel TS, Schindler D, Bange G*, Zhulin IB*, Sourjik V*. 2025. Specificities of chemosensory receptors in the human gut microbiota. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 122: e2508950122.

Monteagudo-Cascales E, Gavira JA, Xing J, Velando F, Matilla MA, Zhulin IB*, Krell T*. 2025. Bacterial sensor evolved by decreasing complexity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 122: e2409881122.

Halte M*, Andrianova EP, Goosmann C, Chevance FFV, Hughes KT, Zhulin IB, Erhardt M*. 2024. FlhE functions as a chaperone to prevent formation of periplasmic flagella in Gram-negative bacteria. Nature Communications 15: 5921.

Monteagudo-Cascales E, Gumerov VM, Fernandez M, Matilla MA, Gavira JA, Zhulin IB*, Krell T*. 2024.Ubiquitous purine sensor modulates diverse signal transduction pathways in bacteria. Nature Communications 15: 5867. 

Holub AS, Choudury SG, Andrianova EP, Dresden CE, Camacho RU, Zhulin IB, Husbands, AY*. 2024. START domains license paralog-specific regulons from a single network architecture. Nature Communications 15: 9861.

Gumerov VM*, Ulrich LE, Zhulin IB*. 2024. MiST 4.0: a new release of the microbial signal transduction database, now with a metagenome content. Nucleic Acids Research 52: D647-D653.

Guo L, Wang YH, Cui R, Huang Z, Hong Y, Qian JW, Ni B, Xu AM, Jiang CY, Zhulin IB*, Liu SJ*, Li DF*. 2023. Attractant and repellent induce opposing changes in the four-helix bundle ligand-binding domain of a chemoreceptor. PLoS Biology 21: e3002429.

Cerna-Vargas JP, Gumerov VM, Krell T*, Zhulin IB*. 2023. Amine-recognizing domain in diverse receptors from bacteria and archaea evolved from the universal amino acid sensor. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 120: e2305837120.

Xing J, Gumerov VM, Zhulin IB*. 2023. Origin and functional diversification of PAS domain, a ubiquitous intracellular sensor. Science Advances  9: eadi4517.

Andrianova EP, Marmion RA, Shvartsman SY*, Zhulin IB*. 2023. Evolutionary history of MEK1 illuminates the nature of deleterious mutations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 120: e2304184120.

Gumerov VM, Andrianova EP, Matilla MA, Page KM, Monteagudo-Cascales E, Dolphin AC, Krell T*, Zhulin IB*. 2022. Amino acid sensor conserved from bacteria to humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 119: e2110415119.

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