Richard Wheeler
Sir Henry Dale Fellow
Parasite cell biology
The Wheeler Lab is primarily researching how the highly motile single cell eukaryotic parasites which cause leishmaniasis (Leishmania species) and sleeping sickness (African trypanosomes) control their swimming and how this contributes to progression through their life cycles.
Research in this group exploits high content automated analysis of large data sets from light and electron microscopy, supported by mathematical modelling, to analyse how flagellum structure and cell shape contribute to cell swimming behaviours, how the cell generates these precisely defined structures and why parasites adapt their swimming to the different host and vector environments they encounter through their life cycles.
Much of this work also speaks to general questions regarding cell motility and flagellum function, including how defects in flagella cause human genetic disease - ciliopathies.
Supporting this work, Richard Wheeler co-manages the TrypTag.org data set a project which has determined the sub-cellular localisation of every trypanosome protein. Protein localisation within the highly structured trypanosome cells is informative for function and is a major new cell biology and parasitology resource while also supporting research in his group.
Recent publications
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Radial spoke protein 9 is necessary for axoneme assembly in Plasmodium but not in trypanosomatid parasites.
Journal article
Ramakrishnan C. et al, (2023), Journal of cell science, 136
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Identification of 30 transition fibre proteins reveals a complex and dynamic structure with essential roles in ciliogenesis
Preprint
Ahmed M. et al, (2023)
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Subcellular protein localisation of Trypanosoma brucei bloodstream form-upregulated proteins maps stage-specific adaptations
Journal article
Halliday C. et al, (2023), Wellcome Open Research, 8, 46 - 46
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Radial spoke protein 9 is necessary for axoneme assembly in Plasmodium but not in trypanosomatid parasites.
Journal article
Ramakrishnan C. et al, (2023), J Cell Sci
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Genome-wide subcellular protein map for the flagellate parasite Trypanosoma brucei.
Journal article
Billington K. et al, (2023), Nature microbiology, 8, 533 - 547