My long-term career goal is to carry out research that is focused on the molecular basis of disease. My immediate goal is to advance my career by starting to build an independent research program under the guidance of two distinctive and well-established mentors. Dr. Dawson will provide supervision in all aspects of the career development plan and Dr. Larsson will contribute in designing and interpreting experiments on state-dependence of cysteine accessibility. The long-range goal of the proposed research is to determine if there are structural components in the transmembrane domains (TMDs) of CFTR channel that are involved in the conformational changes associated with channel gating. It is well established that channel gating is controlled by the intracellular domains, but results from several studies have suggested that the pore domain is an important part of the gating mechanism. Little is known, however, about how the binding and hydrolysis of ATP in the nucleotide binding domains are translated into either the movement or a conformational change in TMDs that opens or closes the channel pore. The proposed research will focus on three specific aims: 1) To identify residues exhibiting state-dependent accessibility to Au(CN)2-. 2) To investigate the effect of Au(CN)2- on the single-channel function in constructs exhibiting state-dependent accessibility to Au(CN)2-. 3) To investigate the effects of other thiol-directed reagents on the function of constructs that show state-dependent accessibility to Au(CN)2-. The working hypothesis that will guide the proposed research is that CFTR shares the fundamental functional features of the ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) family in which conformational changes in the TMDs occur during the transport process. The research strategy is to assay the effects of thiol-directed reagents on engineered cysteines in the TMD's of CFTR using inside-out or outside-out patches that will allow the access to both the intracellular and the extracellular solution.
| Alexander, Christopher; Ivetac, Anthony; Liu, Xuehong et al. (2009) Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator: using differential reactivity toward channel-permeant and channel-impermeant thiol-reactive probes to test a molecular model for the pore. Biochemistry 48:10078-88 |
| Liu, Xuehong (2008) A possible role for intracellular GSH in spontaneous reaction of a cysteine (T338C) engineered into the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator. Biometals 21:277-87 |
| Liu, Xuehong; Alexander, Christopher; Serrano, Jose et al. (2006) Variable reactivity of an engineered cysteine at position 338 in cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator reflects different chemical states of the thiol. J Biol Chem 281:8275-85 |
