• Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Immunology

• Campus Address: MS 420
• Telephone: (317) 274-8691
• E-mail: xfyang@iupui.edu

Hal Broxmeyer named distinguished professor at IUSM (click here for more details)

Janice Blum discusses Immunology & Infectious Diseases (click here for more details)

Training:
• B.S.1985: Liaoning University, China
• M.S.1988: Chinese Academy of Science, China
• M.S.1994: The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
• Ph.D.1997: The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
• Post Doctoral,1997-2001: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX

Summary of the focus of the research of Dr. Yang:
Dr. Yang's laboratory focuses on the gene regulation and pathogenesis of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease.  

Description and summary of research focus of the laboratory:
Lyme disease, the most common arthropod-borne illness in the U. S. and Europe, is an infection caused by a spirochetal bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi . It is transmitted to animals and man through the bite of infected Ixodes ticks.   Little is known about how B. burgdorferi adapts to its diverse environmental niches and maintains itself in nature via a complex enzootic cycle. The main focus of Dr. Yang's laboratory is to use Borrelia transmission between ticks and mammals as a model system to study vector-pathogen and host-pathogen interactions. Dr. Yang and others have recently identified a key regulatory network that modulates expression of many Borrelia outer surface lipoproteins among which some have been shown to be essential for spirochete transmission in ticks and infection in mice. Continuing effort will be focused on elucidating the signal transduction mechanism of the network as well as the molecular mechanisms of lipoprotein gene regulation. Another research focus of the laboratory is to study the mechanisms of persistent infection by B. burgdorferi in mammalian hosts.

Publications
Yang XF , Hubner A, Popova TG, Hagman KE, Norgard MV. 2003.   Regulation of expression of the paralogous Mlp family in Borrelia burgdorferi .   Infect Immun. 71(9):5012-20.

Yang XF , Alani SM, Norgard MV. 2003. The response regulator Rrp2 is essential for the expression of major membrane lipoproteins in Borrelia burgdorferi .   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 100(19):11001-6.

Pal U, Yang X, Chen M, Bockenstedt LK, Anderson JF, Flavell RA, Norgard MV, Fikrig E. 2004. OspC facilitates Borrelia burgdorferi invasion of Ixodes scapularis salivary glands. J Clin Invest. 113(2):220-30.

Yang XF, Pal U, Alani SM, Fikrig E, Norgard MV. 2004. Essential role for OspA/B in the life cycle of the Lyme disease spirochete. J Exp Med.   199(5):641-8.

Yang XF, Lybecker MC, Pal U, Alani SM, Blevins JS, Revel AT, Samuels DS, Norgard MV. 2005. Analysis of the ospC regulatory element controlled by the RpoN-RpoS regulatory pathway in Borrelia burgdorferi .  J Bact 187 (14):4822-29.

Yang Lab Web Page

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