Joseph Mougous
Assistant Professor of Microbiology

Email: mougous@u.washington.edu
Phone:(206) 685-7742
Office Location: Health Sciences K-340A
Campus Box: 357242

Research:

Dr. Mougous performed his graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley in the laboratory of Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi. His thesis focused on the biosynthesis and role in virulence of sulfated glycolipids produced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John Mekalanos at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Mougous studied protein secretion in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

A major focus of the Mougous lab is to understand, from both mechanistic and functional perspectives, the type VI protein secretion system (T6SS). This pathway, which is present in hundreds of Gram-negative bacteria, is remarkable in that it can target its substrates–some of which are toxins–to eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells. Current projects in our lab aim to identify novel T6SS substrates and characterize their mechanism-of-action, develop a structure-function model for the T6SS, define the steps leading to activation of the system, and to investigate the impact of the system on bacterial pathogenesis and microbial ecology. The lab employs a diverse toolkit that ranges from animal models of disease to protein crystallography.

Selected Publications:

Hood R.D., Singh P., Hsu F., Guvener T., Carl M.A., Trinidad R.S., Silverman J.M., Ohlson B.B., Hicks K.G., Plemel R.L., Li M., Schwarz S., Wang W.Y., Merz A.J., Goodlett D.R., and Mougous J.D. A Type VI Secretion System of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Targets a Toxin to Bacteria. Cell Host Microbe. 2010 7(1):25-37.

Hsu F., Schwarz S., Mougous J.D. TagR promotes PpkA-catalysed type VI secretion activation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Mol Microbiol. 2009 72(5):1111-25.

Ballister E.R., Lai A.H., Zuckermann R.N., Cheng Y., Mougous J.D. In vitro self-assembly of tailorable nanotubes from a simple protein building block. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2008 105(10):3733-8.


Mougous J.D., Gifford C.A., Ramsdell T.L., Mekalanos J.J. Threonine phosphorylation post-translationally regulates protein secretion in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nat. Cell Biol. 2007 9:(7):797-803.


Mougous J.D., Cuff M.E., Raunser S., Shen A., Zhou M., Gifford C.A., Goodman A.L., Joachimiak G., Ordonez C.L., Lory S., Walz T., Joachimiak A., Mekalanos J.J. A virulence locus of Pseudomonas aeruginosa encodes a protein secretion apparatus. Science 2006 12(5779):1526-30.


Mougous J.D., Senaratne R.S., Petzold C.J., Jain M., Lee D.H., Schelle M.W., Leavell M.D., Cox J.S., Leary J.A., Riley L.W. and Bertozzi C.R. A novel sulfated metabolite produced by stf3 negatively regulates the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2006 103(11):4258-63.


Mougous J.D., Lee D.H., Hubbard S.C., Schelle M.W., Vocadlo D.J., Berger J.M., Bertozzi C.R. Molecular basis for G protein control of the prokaryotic ATP sulfurylase. Mol. Cell. 2006 21(1):109-22.


Mougous J.D., Petzold C.J., Senaratne R.H., Lee D.H., Akey D.L., Lin F.L., Munchel S.E., Pratt M.R., Riley L.W., Leary J.A., Berger J.M. and Bertozzi C.R. Identification, function and structure of the mycobacterial sulfotransferase that initiates Sulfolipid-1 biosynthesis. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 2004 11(8):721-9.


Converse S.E., Mougous J.D., Leavell M.D., Leary J.A., Bertozzi C.R. and Cox J.S. MmpL8 is required for sulfolipid-1 biosynthesis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis virulence. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2003 100(10):6121-6.


Mougous J.D., Leavell M.D., Senaratne R.H., Leigh C.D., Williams S.J., Riley L.W., Leary J.A. and Bertozzi C.R. Discovery of sulfated metabolites in mycobacteria with a genetic and mass spectrometric approach. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2002 99(26):17037-42