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.

The primary objective of research in the Mougous lab is to delineate cell-cell interaction pathways of pathogenic and symbiotic microbes with their eukaryotic hosts. These pathways can be loosely defined as the amalgam of molecules (small and macro) and interactions that relay information about the microbe to the host, and, likewise, about the host to the microbe. In a manner analogous to espionage, this exchange of information is fraught with deceit, which can be to the benefit or detriment of either the microbe or the host. Ultimately, such crosstalk has the capacity to dictate the outcome of an infection.

A broad understanding that spans the organismal and molecular levels of these interspecies communication pathways is critical for the development of new therapeutic routes and ultimately new therapeutics. The Mougous lab, therefore, employs a diverse toolkit that ranges from animal models of disease to protein crystallography.

Selected Publications:

Hsu F., Schwarz S., Mougous J.D. TagR promotes PpkA-catalysed type VI secretion activation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Mol Microbiol. 2009 Apr 21.

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