Xuehua Xu
Xuehua Xu
Department of Chemotaxis Signal Section, Laboratory of Immunogenetics, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health; Rockville, MD USA
Biography
Dr. Xuehua Xu obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from Harbin Normal University, China, and her PhD in biotechnology from Tsukuba University, Japan. Starting in 2002, Dr. Xu was in postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health (NIAID/NIH), where she focused on developing and applying state-of-the-art imaging technologies to monitor the signaling network of GPCR-mediated chemotaxis in the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum. The interplay between computational simulation and experimental verification allowed her to identify new components and novel signaling pathways essential for chemotaxis.
Research Interest
Chemotaxis is defined as directional cell migration guided by chemoattractant gradients. Chemotaxis plays critical roles in many physiological processes, including recruitment of neutrophils to sites of inflammation, cancer cell metastasis, and the development of the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum. All eukaryotic cells detect chemoattractants by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and share remarkable similarities in the signaling pathways that control chemotaxis. D. discoideum has been proven to be a powerful model system in which to identify new components essential for chemotaxis. My primary research interests focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlining chemotaxis in multiple systems: first, to identify novel components and signaling pathways essential for chemotaxis using the model organism D. discoideum; and next, to understand the roles of their mammalian counterparts in order to identify new therapeutic targets and strategies for inflammatory diseases and breast cancer metastasis. To this end, I developed and applied state-of-the-art live cell/single molecule imaging techniques to visualize the spatiotemporal dynamics of the GPCR-mediated signaling network that leads to chemotaxis in D. discoideum. By combining computational simulation and experimental validation, we have been studying chemotaxis in D. discoideum: my studies have revealed that locally controlled inhibitory mechanism is essential for the GPCR signaling network for chemosensing. During the last four years, I have expanded my research into neutrophil chemotaxis and revealed a novel signaling pathway consisting of PLC/PKC/PKD/SSH2 that regulates the cofilin activity by which neutrophils control depolymerization of the F-actin cytoskeleton during chemotaxis.
