Xiaochen Wang

Biography

1999-2005 Postdoctoral research associate, Department of MCD Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA  1998-1999 Visiting student, Laboratory of Genetics, Gent University/VIB, Belgium  1994-1999 Ph.D., National Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, China  1988-1992 B.S., Microbiology, Department of Microbiology, Shandong University, China  Professional Experience  2015-present Principal Investigator Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science  2011-2014 Associate Investigator, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China  2006-2011 Assistant Investigator, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China  1999-2006 Postdoctoral research associate, Department of MCD Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA  1998-1999 Visiting student, Laboratory of Genetics, Gent University/VIB, Belgium  1999-2005 Postdoctoral research associate, Department of MCD Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA  1998-1999 Visiting student, Laboratory of Genetics, Gent University/VIB, Belgium  1994-1999 Ph.D., National Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Peking University, China  1988-1992 B.S., Microbiology, Department of Microbiology, Shandong University, China  Professional Experience  2015-present Principal Investigator Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science  2011-2014 Associate Investigator, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China  2006-2011 Assistant Investigator, National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China  1999-2006 Postdoctoral research associate, Department of MCD Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA  1998-1999 Visiting student, Laboratory of Genetics, Gent University/VIB, Belgium 

Research Interest

Our laboratory investigates how apoptotic cells are properly removed during programmed cell death and how lysosome dynamics and functions are regulated using C. elegans as a model system. Employing combinatory approaches of genetics, cell biology and biochemistry, we have been systemically identifying new genes and dissecting regulatory mechanisms controlling various aspects of apoptotic cell removal including recognition, internalization and degradation of cell corpses. We have identified secretory bridging molecules TTR-52 and NRF-5 that mediate recognition of cell corpses by phagocytes (Wang et al., Nat Cell Biol 2010; Zhang et al., Curr Biol 2012; Kang et al., Genes & Dev 2012). We found that myotubularin phosphatase MTM-1 coordinates with the PI3 kinases PIKI-1 and VPS-34 to control initiation and completion of cell corpse engulfment (Zou et al., PLoS Genet 2009; Cheng et al., JCB 2015). We identified regulators of phagosome maturation, which act at sequential steps to promote cell corpse degradation (Lu et al., Development 2008; Li et al., Development 2009; Guo et al., PNAS 2010). Moreover, we found that non-apoptotic targets like residual bodies generated during spermatogenesis are recognized and cleared by the same molecular machinery that removes apoptotic cells (Huang et al., Development 2012). In addition, we demonstrate that the autophagy pathway contributes to cell corpse clearance through the PI3 kinase VPS-34 (Cheng et al., Autophagy 2013). As evolutionarily conserved mechanisms are utilized to remove apoptotic cells, these findings have greatly advanced our understanding of apoptotic cell clearance in both worms and mammals. Our current research focuses on the investigation of selective exposure of the PtdSer “eat me” signal and the further dissection of the regulatory machinery controlling cell corpse degradation.