Affiliations

• Translational Data Analytics Institute
• Interdisciplinary Biophysics Graduate Program
• Infectious Diseases Institute

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 ranging from Mendelian disorders to cancer. 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.

Selected Publications

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

Andrianova EP, Marmion RA, Shvartsman SY, Zhulin IB. 2023. Evolutionary history of MEK1 illuminates the nature of deleterious mutations. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 120: e2304184120.

Dahimene S, von Elsner L, Holling T, Mattas LS, Pickard J, Lessel D, Pilch KS, Kadurin I, Pratt WS, Zhulin IB, Dai H, Hempel M, Ruzhnikov MRZ, Kutsche K, Dolphin AC. 2022. Biallelic CACNA2D1 loss-of-function variants cause early-onset developmental epileptic encephalopathy. Brain 145: 2721-2729.

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. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 119: e2110415119.

Gumerov VM, Andrianova EP, Zhulin IB. 2021. Diversity of bacterial chemosensory systems. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 61: 42-50.

Elgamoudi BA, Andrianova EP, Shewell LK, Day CJ, King RM, Taha, Rahman H, Hartley-Tassell LE, Zhulin IB, Korolik V. 2021. The Campylobacter jejuni chemoreceptor Tlp10 has a bimodal ligand-binding domain and specificity for multiple classes of chemoeffectors. Sci. Signal, 14: eabc8521.

Gumerov VM, Zhulin IB. 2020. TREND: a platform for exploring protein function in prokaryotes based on phylogenetic, domain architecture and gene neighborhood analyses. Nucleic Acids Res. 48: W72-W76.

Gumerov VM, Ortega DR, Adebali O, Ulrich LE, Zhulin IB. 2020. MiST 3.0: an updated microbial signal transduction database with an emphasis on chemosensory systems. Nucleic Acids Res. 48: D459-D464.

Muok AR, Deng Y, Gumerov VM, Chong JE, DeRosa JR, Kurniyati K, Coleman RE, Lancaster KM, Li C, Zhulin IB, Crane BR. 2019. A di-iron protein recruited as an Fe[II] and oxygen sensor for bacterial chemotaxis functions by stabilizing an iron-peroxy species. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 116: 14955-14960. 

Ortega DR, Fleetwood AD, Krell T, Harwood CS, Jensen GJ, Zhulin IB. 2017. Assigning chemoreceptors to chemosensory pathways in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 114: 12809-12814.

Ortega Á, Zhulin IB, Krell T. 2017. Sensory repertoire of bacterial chemoreceptors. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 81: e00033-17.

Upadhyay AA, Fleetwood AD, Adebali O, Finn RD, Zhulin IB. 2016. Cache domains that are homologous to, but different from PAS domains comprise the largest superfamily of extracellular sensors in prokaryotes. PLoS Comput. Biol. 12: e1004862.

Adebali O, Reznik AO, Ory DS, Zhulin IB. 2016. Establishing the precise evolutionary history of a gene improves prediction of disease-causing missense mutations. Genet. Med. 18: 1029-1036.

Ortega DR, Yang C, Ames P, Baudry J, Parkinson JS, Zhulin IB. 2013. A phenylalanine rotameric switch for signal-state control in bacterial chemoreceptors. Nat. Commun. 4: 2881.

Wuichet K, Zhulin IB. 2010. Origins and diversification of a complex signal transduction system in prokaryotes. Sci. Signal. 3: ra50.

Ulrich LE, Koonin EV, Zhulin IB. 2005. One-component systems dominate signal transduction in prokaryotes. Trends Microbiol. 13: 52-56.

Google Scholar

PubMed