Qingyun Liu, PhD (Assistant Professor, Genetics) has published a paper in Nature Communications titled “Genetically encoded transcriptional plasticity underlies stress adaptation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis”.
In a collaborative effort involving researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Fudan University, the study was focused on unraveling the complex factors governing the transcriptional response in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterial pathogen responsible for tuberculosis, which remains the leading cause of human death due to a single infectious agent, with more than 10.6 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths each year. The study found significant transcriptional plasticity variation among Mtb genes, correlating with gene functions and essentiality. They also found that gene length, GC content, and operon size independently constrain transcriptional plasticity. The findings may help prioritize gene candidates for drug targeting or mechanistic dissection.