School of Life Science, Peking University

Wensheng Wei, Ph.D.

Professor, School of Life Science, Peking University

tel : 86 - 10 - 6275-7227

fax : 86 - 10 - 6276-7227

New Life Science Building, Peking University, Summer Palace Road No. 5, Beijing, P. R. China 100871

Research Interests

Our current research is mainly focused on the mechanistic study of human diseases, with the emphasis on infectious diseases.

Human have been and will always be afflicted by infectious diseases. Conventional countermeasures against infectious disease are directly targeted on pathogens. Although the use of antibiotics has been largely successful in controlling pathogenic bacteria, drug-resistance strains emerged, esp. after the increasing antibiotic use. Worst of all, the resistance to multiple drugs have been detected in a growing list of bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance is also evident in other microorganisms, including parasites, fungi and viruses.

While the battle against infectious diseases continues with the development of new antibiotics and vaccines, our research attention has shifted to host-oriented countermeasures. Genes and pathways in host cell are required for pathogens themselves or their secreted toxins to gain entry to the intracellular sites of their hosts. Their subsequent detrimental functions inside of the cells are also dependent on the host cooperation. In addition, certain host cell proteins might be involved in the infection process of different pathogens, and the inhibition of these targets may lead to broad-spectrum resistance. Most importantly, therapeutic applications aiming at host targets rather than pathogens are likely to be better able to overcome pathogen mutations that lead to the antimicrobial resistance.

Publications

Lih, C., Wei, W., Cohen, SN., Txr1: a transcriptional regulator of thrombospondin-1 that modulates cellular sensitivity to taxanes , Genes Dev. , 2006 , 20, 2082-2095.
Wei, W., Lu, Q., Chaudry, J., Leppla, S., Cohen, SN. , The LDL receptor-related protein LRP6 mediates internalization and lethality of anthrax toxin , Cell , 2006 , 124, 1141-1154.
Lu, Q., Wei, W., Kowalski, P., Chang, A., Cohen, SN. , EST-based genome-wide gene inactivation identifies ARAP3 as a host protein affecting cellular susceptibility to anthrax toxin , Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA , 2004 , 101, 17246-51.
Wei, W., Plovanich-Jones, A., Deng, W., Jin, Q., Collmer, A., Huang, H., and He, SY. , The gene coding for the Hrp pilus structural protein is required for type III secretion of Hrp and Avr proteins in Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato , Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA , 2000 , 97, 2247-52.
Roine, E., Wei, W., Yuan, J., Nurmiaho-Lassila, EL., Kalkkinen, N., Romantschuk, M., He SY. , Hrp pilus: an hrp-dependent bacterial surface appendage produced by Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 , Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA , 1997 , 94, 3459-64. (Co-first author)