Prof. Deng received his Bachelor and Master degrees in Microbiology from China Agricultural University. He completed PhD in Genetics at the Kansas State University and postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago. He was a Professor at Nankai University, and has been working in CityUHK as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor. He is interested in bacterial virulence, including gene regulation, signaling pathways, and RNA epigenetics. His research lies on the interface of multi-disciplinary approaches with the ultimate goal of developing novel therapies to combat bacterial infection. More information can be found at the group website.

He has published over 100 papers in SCI-indexed journals including Cell, Cell Host Microbe, Nature Communications, Cell Reports, eLife, EMBO Reports, PLOS Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, mBio, etc. His work has earned him over 7,200 citations on Google Scholar (H-index of 37).

Prof. Deng was awarded a CityUHK President’s Award in 2019 and Outstanding Research Award in 2023. His research has been supported by Hong Kong Research Grants Council (including ECS, GRF, CRF and TBRS), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF), Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF), Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission, and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation for a total available resource of over $30 million HKD.

Prof. Deng serves as an editor for 6 SCI journals, including Genes & Diseases as Associate Editor. He is a Grant Review Board member for HMRF, and has reviewed grant applications for more than 10 funding agents from more than 10 countries and regions, including China, UK and Singapore.

Research Interests

The emergence and spread of various multidrug-resistant bacterial strains have posed alarming challenges to public health and agriculture worldwide. Public demand for new antibiotics is enormous, yet drug development pipelines of the pharmaceutical industry started to run dry with limited targets available for inventing new bactericidal antibiotics. His lab has been working on molecular mechanism of virulence in model bacterial pathogens including Pseudomonas syringae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella pneumoniae. These pathogens rely on multiple system to invade their hosts, which is finely regulated by a group of transcription factors and signaling pathways. Research in his group has led to the identification of a variety of new virulence-associated two-component systems, transcription factors and their molecular mechanisms. His lab has mapped the global transcription factor-based regulatory networks for these superbugs, and found a couple of potent lead compounds inhibiting them. His work also demonstrates that RNA modifications exist in a wide range of bacterial species, which suggests their potential important roles in gene regulation.

 

Representative Recent Publications

1. Hua C^#, Huang J^#, Sun Y^#, Wang T^#, Li Y, Cui Z, Deng X*. Hfq mediates transcriptome-wide RNA structurome reprogramming under virulence-inducing conditions in a phytopathogen. Cell Reports. (2024) 43(8):114544.
2. Huang J^#, Chen F^#, Lu B, Sun Y, Li Y, Hua C, Deng X*. DNA methylome regulates virulence and metabolism in Pseudomonas syringae. eLife. (2024) DOI: 10.7554/eLife.96290.1
3. Sun Y^#, Li J^#, Huang J^#, Li S, Li Y, Deng X*. Architecture of genome-wide transcriptional regulatory network reveals dynamic functions and evolutionary trajectories in Pseudomonas syringae. eLife. (2024) DOI: 10.7554/eLife.96172.1
4. Xie Y^#, Li J^#, Ding Y^#, Shao X, Sun Y, Xie F, Liu S, Tang S, Deng X*. An atlas of bacterial two-component systems reveals function and plasticity in signal transduction. Cell Reports. (2022) 41(3):111502.
5. Hua C^#, Huang J^#, Wang T^#, Sun Y, Liu J, Huang L, Deng X*. Bacterial transcription factors bind to coding regions and regulate internal cryptic promoters. mBio. (2022) e0164322.
6. Xie Y^#, Ding Y^#, Shao X, Yao C, Li J, Liu J, Deng X*. Pseudomonas syringae senses polyphenols via phosphorelay crosstalk to inhibit virulence. EMBO Reports. (2021) 12:e52805.
7. Shao X^#, Tan M^#, Xie Y, Yao C, Wang T, Huang H, Zhang Y, Ding Y, Liu J, Han L, Hua C, Wang X*, Deng X*. Integrated regulatory network in Pseudomonas syringae reveals dynamics of virulence. Cell Reports. (2021) 34:108920.
8. Fan L^#, Wang T^#, Hua C^#, Sun W^#, Li X, Grunwald L, Liu J, Wu N, Shao X, Yin Y, Yan J*, Deng X*. A compendium of DNA-binding specificities of transcription factors in Pseudomonas syringae. Nature Communications. (2020) 11:4947.
9. Huang H^#, Shao X^#, Xie Y^#, Wang T, Zhang Y, Wang X*, Deng X*. An integrated genomic regulatory network of virulence-related transcriptional factors in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Nature Communications. (2019) 10:2931.
10. Xie Y, Shao X, Zhang Y, Liu J, Wang T, Zhang W, Hua C, Deng X*. Pseudomonas savastanoi two-component system RhpRS switches between virulence and metabolism by tuning phosphorylation state and sensing nutritional conditions. mBio. (2019) 10(2):e02838-18.

6 October 2024