Igor B. Jouline (Zhulin)
Joint Faculty:
- Professor, Microbiology & Genome Science Technology - University of Tennessee
- Distinguished R&D Staff, Computer Science & Mathematics Division - Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Zhulin Lab Homepage
Email: joulineib@ornl.gov
Research
At the Zhulin lab, we try to understand what new we can learn about biology by using computational genomic approaches. We apply computational analyses to best characterized biological systems in order to reveal novel functional features that cannot be obtained by experimental techniques alone.
In this work, we use an array of bioinformatics tools – from gene finding and similarity searches to phylogenetics and structure prediction – and several tiers of hardware – from workstations and stand-alone servers to Linux clusters and supercomputers sifting through trillions of letters of DNA and protein sequences in search of answers to basic biological questions.
We are interested in fundamental biological processes, such as signal transduction, gene regulation and protein-protein interactions, which we study through the prism of molecular evolution.
Our credo is simple: Nature has already performed millions of genetic experiments; all we need to do is to carefully analyze the results. Most of our studies generate testable hypotheses that are often taken directly into experiment by our colleagues in “wet” laboratories.
Our work leads to better understanding of biological systems and have direct applications to medicine, environment, bioenergy, and agriculture.
Selected Publications
Additional publications are available at the Zhulin lab website.
- Xie Z, Ulrich LE, Zhulin IB and Alexandre G. 2010. PAS domain containing chemoreceptor couples dynamic changes in metabolism with chemotaxis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA published online before print January 19, 2010.
- Ulrich, L.E. and I.B. Zhulin. 2010. The MiST2 database: a comprehensive genomics resource on microbial signal transduction. Nucleic Acids Res 38 D401-D407.
- Briegel A ., et al. 2009. Universal architecture of bacterial chemoreceptor arrays. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106: 17181-17186
- Fredrickson JK ., et al. 2008. Towards environmental systems biology of Shewanella. Nat Rev Microbiol 6: 592-603
- Weiner RM et al (2008) Complete genome sequence of the complex carbohydrate-degrading marine bacterium Saccharophagus degradans strain 2-40 T. PLoS Genet 4 : e1000087
- Alexander, R.P. and I.B. Zhulin. 2007. From the Cover: Evolutionary genomics reveals conserved structural determinants of signaling and adaptation in microbial chemoreceptors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104: 2885-2890
- Borziak K and Zhulin IB . 2007. FIST: a sensory domain for diverse signal transduction pathways in prokaryotes and ubiquitin signaling in eukaryotes. Bioinformatics 23 2518-2521.
