Liming Li
Assistant Professor
Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry
Institute for Neuroscience
To contact Dr. Li:
Searle 474
320 East Superior Street Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 312-503-4420
Fax: 312-503-7345
e-mail:limingli@northwestern.edu
Dr. Li's website
Research Interests:
Yeast prions are atypical proteins capable of existing in multiple heritable
conformations that are associated with distinct phenotypes. They are referred
to as yeast prions since their protein-natured inheritance resembles the underlying
mechanism responsible for the devastating mammalian prion diseases, including
scrapie in sheep, mad cow disease in cattle, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
in humans. Like the mammalian infectious agent, yeast prions are able to self-propagate
using the non-prion conformation isomer as substrates; to form amyloid fibers
under physiological conditions; and to exist in distinct “strains.”
However, yeast prions usually result in epigenetically inherited phenotypic
variations rather than “disease.”
The laboratory of Dr. Li is interested in understanding how the prion-like protein conformation based inheritance is regulated in yeast. Combining the powerful yeast genetics with other biochemical and cell biological approaches, they wish to dissect the initiation and propagation processes of priongenesis, and ultimately to identify novel cellular factors required in each of these processes.