Email: jwood@uoguelph.ca

Office: SCIE 4251
Ext: 53866
Lab: SCIE 4205
Ext: 53026

Profile

I was introduced to research as a child, through visits to my father's nutritional biochemistry lab at UBC. My first lab job was tending white tailed deer and caribou for a study of Vitamin A deficiency. Those skittish critters enhanced my interest in math and physics! I moved to the University of Victoria after a first undergrad year in Arts and Science at UBC. The new UVic program in Bacteriology and Biochemistry was a positive change after the big intro classes at UBC...including Intro Physics with 499 UBC Engineers! At UVic classes were small and undergrads were treated like grad students - that meant high academic expectations and good interactions with faculty. Single courses in biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology capped a program rich in organic, physical and analytical chemistry.

Since molecular biology was new and captivating I chose chromatin structure as the topic of my PhD research at the University of Edinburgh... and met my Scottish relatives. Next I accepted a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Leon Heppel's lab at Cornell University, agreed to study membrane transport in Escherichia coli, and found myself immersed in the Great Chemiosmotic Wars! By 1980 most biochemists were convinced that the protonmotive force was a key bioenergetic intermediate. But to understand how a membrane enzyme can be fuelled by protons would require understanding the structures and dynamics of integral membrane proteins - a challenge!

At Cornell and in my lab at Guelph we found that E. coli has multiple transporters for each amino acid, suggesting that each transporter has a distinct physiological role. Students Suzanne Grothe and Tom Redelmeier joined me for my first sabbatical year, in Paul Boyer's lab at UCLA. There we learned how it feels to do sophisticated enzymology on a complex molecular machine: the F0F1-ATPase. Back in Guelph we learned that two proline transporters help E. coli to survive osmotic stress - an important skill for bacteria that survive in water and food as well as human and animal tissues.

Many people now share our interest in cellular osmoregulation because it is important to all living cells, in agriculture and in medicine. But how can a (membrane) protein sense and respond to changes in the osmotic pressure of a solution? How can proline transport be coupled to the protonmotive force and linked to the osmotic pressure? Thanks to Dr. Sandy Kirk, my UVic Phys Chem Prof, we may soon find out...

Education

B.Sc. University of Victoria, B.C., Canada
Ph.D. University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Research

Cells control their own hydration by accumulating and releasing osmolytes, compounds that stabilize cytoplasmic structures and interactions. Multiple osmoregulatory systems have been found in laboratory Escherichia coli strains, but genomic analyses of commensal and pathogenic E. coli predict additional mechanisms. We are identifying new osmolytes and osmolyte transporters, thereby contributing to the structural proteomics of E. coli, seeking new protein-stabilizing osmolytes and defining mechanisms that differentiate pathogenic E. coli from commensal strains.

We use genetic, molecular biological, biochemical and biophysical tools to study E. coli proteins ProP and ProQ. ProP is an osmosensor and osmolyte transporter that detects changes in extracellular osmotic pressure and responds by changing cytoplasmic composition. ProQ amplifies ProP activity, helping ProP to prevent cellular dehydration. We were the first to demonstrate that a particular protein (ProP) can act as an osmosensor. ProP is integral to the cytoplasmic membrane of E. coli. We know that it senses changes in extracellular osmotic pressure, but also that such osmotic stress alters many properties of living cells. Our current aims are to understand which change(s) are sensed by ProP, how ProP responds to those changes and how ProQ amplifies ProP activity.

Prof Emeritus Bob Keates creates structural models that facilitate our research on ProQ and ProP. We collaborate with the labs of Joan Boggs (Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto) and Robert Hodges (University of Colorado, Denver) to better understand the structures of these fascinating proteins and the structural dynamics associated with osmosensing and osmoregulation. Our research is supported by Canadians via the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).

For more information about my research please see my lab web site

Selected Publications

D.E. Culham, Y.I. Vernikovska, N. Tschowri, R.A.B. Keates, J.M. Wood and J.M. Boggs (2008) Periplasmic loops of osmosensory transporter ProP in Escherichia coli are sensitive to osmolality. Biochem., In Press October 2008.

T. Romantsov, L. Stalker, D.E. Culham and J.M. Wood (2008) Cardiolipin controls the osmotic stress response and the subcellular location of transporter ProP in Escherichia coli. J.Biol.Chem. 283:12314-12323.

Y. Tsatskis, S.C. Kwok, E. Becker, C. Gill, M.N. Smith, R.A.B. Keates, R.S. Hodges and J.M. Wood (2008) Core residue replacements cause coiled-coil orientation switching in vitro and in vivo: structure-function correlations for osmosensory transporter ProP. Biochem. 47:60-72.

T. Romantsov, D.E. Culham and J.M. Wood (2008) Roles of K+, H+, H2O and the membrane potential in solute transport mediated by Major Facilitator Superfamily members ProP and LacY. Biochem. 47:8176-8185.

J.M. Wood (2007) Bacterial Osmosensing Transporters in Osmosensing and Osmosignaling, D. Häussinger and H. Sies, eds. Meth. Enzymol. 428:77-107.

M. Smith, S.C. Kwok, R.S. Hodges and J.M. Wood (2007) Structural and Functional Analysis of ProQ: An Osmoregulatory Protein of Escherichia coli. Biochem. 46:3084-3095.

F. Liu, D.E. Culham, Ya.I. Vernikovska, R.A.B. Keates, J.M. Boggs and J.M. Wood (2007. Structure and Function of the XIIth Transmembrane Segment in Osmosensor and Osmoprotectant Transporter ProP of Escherichia coli. Biochem. 46:5647-5655.

T. Romantsov, S. Helbig, D.E. Culham, C. Gill, L. Stalker and J.M. Wood (2007) Cardiolipin promotes polar localization of osmosensory transporter ProP in Escherichia coli. Mol Microbiol. 64:1455-1465.

J.M. Wood (2006) Perspective on Osmosensing by Bacteria. Science’s STKE 357:pe43.

A. Hillar, D.E. Culham, Ya.I. Vernikovska, J.M. Wood and J.M. Boggs (2005) Formation of an antiparallel, intermolecular coiled-coil is associated with in vivo dimerization of osmosensor and osmoprotectant transporter ProP in Escherichia coli. Biochem. 44:10170-10180.

Y. Tsatskis, J. Khambati, M. Dobson, M. Bogdanov, W. Dowhan and J.M. Wood (2005) The osmotic activation of transporter ProP is tuned by both its C-terminal coiled-coil and osmotically induced changes in phospholipid composition. J. Biol. Chem. 280:41387-41394.

J.M. Wood, D.E. Culham, A. Hillar, Ya.I. Vernikovska, F. Liu, J.M. Boggs, & R.A.B. Keates. (2005) A structural model for the osmosensor, transporter and osmoregulator ProP of Escherichia coli. Biochem. 44:5634-5646

M. Smith, R.A. Crane, R.A.B. Keates & J.M. Wood. (2004) Overexpression, purification and characterization of ProQ, a post-translational regulator for osmoregulatory transporter ProP of Escherichia coli. Biochem. 43:12979-12989.
A. Ly, J. Henderson, A. Lu, D.E. Culham & J.M. Wood. (2004) The osmoregulatory systems of Escherichia coli: Identification of BCCT Family Member BetU and distributions of betU and trkG among pathogenic and non-pathogenic isolates. J Bacteriol. 186: 296-306. 
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Teaching

Microbial Adaptation and Development (MICR*3260)
Structure and Function in Biochemistry (BIOC*3560)

Lab Members

Graduate Student

Michelle Smith (Ph.D.)

Postdoctoral Fellow

Tanya Romantsov

Research Assistant

Doreen (Culham) Larocque

Visiting Professor

Charles Deutch (Arizona State University)

Links

The Wood Lab

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