Fengbin Wang (Jerry)

Overview:

I am a structure biologist. My research has ranged from studies of cell appendages to self-assembly peptide nanotubes. I was born in China and graduated from Fudan University in 2010 with a B.A. in Biology. I received my Ph.D. from Rice Unviersity in 2016 in Biochemistry with Dr. George Phillips Jr. Since 2016, I moved to University of Virginia where I am now a postdoc with Ed.
Lab Website

Background:

X-ray crystallography (Ph.D.) and Cryo-EM (Postdoc)

Research Interests:

Type IV pili: Cell surface filamentous appendages have many functions such as locomotion, attachment, adhesion, assisting in genetic exchange and even long-range extracellular electron transfer for respiration. The bacterial type IV pili (T4P) have received intense scrutiny due to their critical roles in pathogenesis.
Conductive nanowires: Long-range (>10 μm) transport of electrons along networks of G. sulfurreducens protein filaments, known as microbial nanowires, has been invoked to explain a wide range of globally important redox phenomena. These nanowires were previously thought to be type IV pili composed of PilA protein. In our Cell paper, we report a 3.7 Å resolution cryoelectron microscopy structure, which surprisingly reveals that, rather than PilA, G. sulfurreducens nanowires are assembled by micrometer-long polymerization of the hexaheme cytochrome OmcS, with hemes packed within 3.5–6 Å of each other.
Self-assembly nanotubes: Self-assembly is a ubiquitous process in biological systems and functional macromolecular machines of living organisms commonly arise from homomeric or heteromeric self-association. Helical protein assemblies encompass a diversity of functional roles in biological systems that would be desirable to emulate in synthetic or semisynthetic analogs, such as controlled release and delivery, cargo transport, locomotion etc. I have been very interested in this, and participated in such designing with different strategies.

Where do I see myself in 5 years?

Find a faculty position somewhere in the world.

Publications with our group

Two distinct archaeal type IV pili structures formed by proteins with identical sequence. Junfeng Liu, Gunnar N Eastep, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Shane T Rich-New, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Edward H Egelman, Mart Krupovic, Fengbin Wang Published in Nature communications, June 2024 (see publication)

An extensive disulfide bond network prevents tail contraction in Agrobacterium tumefaciens phage Milano. Ravi R Sonani, Lee K Palmer, Nathaniel C Esteves, Abigail A Horton, Amanda L Sebastian, Rebecca J Kelly, Fengbin Wang, Mark A B Kreutzberger, William K Russell, Petr G Leiman, Birgit E Scharf, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, January 2024 (see publication)

Hierarchical Assembly of Intrinsically Disordered Short Peptides. Jiaqi Guo, Shane T Rich-New, Chen Liu, Yimeng Huang, Weiyi Tan, Hongjian He, Meihui Yi, Xixiang Zhang, Edward H Egelman, Fengbin Wang, Bing Xu Published in Chem, December 2023 (see publication)

Neck and capsid architecture of the robust Agrobacterium phage Milano. Ravi R Sonani, Nathaniel C Esteves, Abigail A Horton, Rebecca J Kelly, Amanda L Sebastian, Fengbin Wang, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Petr G Leiman, Birgit E Scharf, Edward H Egelman Published in Communications biology, September 2023 (see publication)

Two dramatically distinct archaeal type IV pili structures formed by the same pilin. Junfeng Liu, Gunnar N Eastep, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Shane T Rich-New, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Edward H Egelman, Mart Krupovic, Fengbin Wang Published in bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, August 2023 (see publication)

The evolution of archaeal flagellar filaments. Mark A B Kreutzberger, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Ying Liu, Diana P Baquero, Junfeng Liu, Ravi R Sonani, Chris R Calladine, Fengbin Wang, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, July 2023 (see publication)

Extracellular cytochrome nanowires appear to be ubiquitous in prokaryotes. Diana P Baquero, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Shengen Shawn Hu, Jessie Lynda Fields, Xing Liu, Christopher Rensing, Edward H Egelman, Mart Krupovic, Fengbin Wang Published in Cell, June 2023 (see publication)

Cell spheroid creation by transcytotic intercellular gelation. Jiaqi Guo, Fengbin Wang, Yimeng Huang, Hongjian He, Weiyi Tan, Meihui Yi, Edward H Egelman, Bing Xu Published in Nature nanotechnology, May 2023 (see publication)

Models are useful until high-resolution structures are available: (Trends in Microbiology 31(6), 550-551; 2023). Fengbin Wang, Lisa Craig, Xing Liu, Christopher Rensing, Edward H Egelman Published in Trends in microbiology, May 2023 (see publication)

Models are useful until high-resolution structures are available. Fengbin Wang, Lisa Craig, Xing Liu, Christopher Rensing, Edward H Egelman Published in Trends in microbiology, April 2023 (see publication)

Archaeal DNA-import apparatus is homologous to bacterial conjugation machinery. Leticia C Beltran, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Jessalyn Miller, Fengbin Wang, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Jonasz B Patkowski, Tiago R D Costa, Stefan Schouten, Ilya Levental, Vincent P Conticello, Edward H Egelman, Mart Krupovic Published in Nature communications, February 2023 (see publication)

Microbial nanowires: type IV pili or cytochrome filaments? Fengbin Wang, Lisa Craig, Xing Liu, Christopher Rensing, Edward H Egelman Published in Trends in microbiology, November 2022 (see publication)

Structure of Geobacter OmcZ filaments suggests extracellular cytochrome polymers evolved independently multiple times Fengbin Wang, Chi Ho Chan, Victor Suciu, Khawla Mustafa, Madeline Ammend, Dong Si, Allon I Hochbaum, Edward H Egelman, Daniel R Bond Published in eLife, September 2022 (see publication)

Convergent evolution in the supercoiling of prokaryotic flagellar filaments. Mark A B Kreutzberger, Ravi R Sonani, Junfeng Liu, Sharanya Chatterjee, Fengbin Wang, Amanda L Sebastian, Priyanka Biswas, Cheryl Ewing, Weili Zheng, Frédéric Poly, Gad Frankel, B F Luisi, Chris R Calladine, Mart Krupovic, Birgit E Scharf, Edward H Egelman Published in Cell, September 2022 (see publication)

Enzyme Responsive Rigid-Rod Aromatics Target ‘Undruggable’ Phosphatases to Kill Cancer Cells in a Mimetic Bone Microenvironment. Meihui Yi, Fengbin Wang, Weiyi Tan, Jer-Tsong Hsieh, Edward H Egelman, Bing Xu Published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, July 2022 (see publication)

Cryo-EM structure of an extracellular Geobacter OmcE cytochrome filament reveals tetrahaem packing. Fengbin Wang, Khawla Mustafa, Victor Suciu, Komal Joshi, Chi H Chan, Sol Choi, Zhangli Su, Dong Si, Allon I Hochbaum, Edward H Egelman, Daniel R Bond Published in Nature microbiology, July 2022 (see publication)

DeepTracer-ID: De novo protein identification from cryo-EM maps. Luca Chang, Fengbin Wang, Kiernan Connolly, Hanze Meng, Zhangli Su, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman, Dong Si Published in Biophysical journal, July 2022 (see publication)

Archaeal bundling pili of Pyrobaculum calidifontis reveal similarities between archaeal and bacterial biofilms Fengbin Wang, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, June 2022 (see publication)

Mating pair stabilization mediates bacterial conjugation species specificity. Wen Wen Low, Joshua L C Wong, Leticia C Beltran, Chloe Seddon, Sophia David, Hok-Sau Kwong, Tatiana Bizeau, Fengbin Wang, Alejandro Peña, Tiago R D Costa, Bach Pham, Min Chen, Edward H Egelman, Konstantinos Beis, Gad Frankel Published in Nature microbiology, June 2022 (see publication)

Spindle-shaped archaeal viruses evolved from rod-shaped ancestors to package a larger genome. Fengbin Wang, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Matthijn Vos, Leticia C Beltran, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Jean-Marie Winter, Zhangli Su, Jun Liu, Stefan Schouten, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Cell, March 2022 (see publication)

Flagellin outer domain dimerization modulates motility in pathogenic and soil bacteria from viscous environments. Mark A B Kreutzberger, Richard C Sobe, Amber B Sauder, Sharanya Chatterjee, Alejandro Peña, Fengbin Wang, Jorge A Giron, Volker Kiessling, Tiago R D Costa, Vincent P Conticello, Gad Frankel, Melissa M Kendall, Birgit E Scharf, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, March 2022 (see publication)

Cryo-EM of Helical Polymers. Fengbin Wang, Ordy Gnewou, Armin Solemanifar, Vincent P Conticello, Edward H Egelman Published in Chemical reviews, February 2022 (see publication)

Atomic structure of Lanreotide nanotubes revealed by cryo-EM. Laura Pieri, Fengbin Wang, Ana-Andreea Arteni, Matthijn Vos, Jean-Marie Winter, Marie-Hélène Le Du, Franck Artzner, Frédéric Gobeaux, Pierre Legrand, Yves Boulard, Stéphane Bressanelli, Edward H Egelman, Maité Paternostre Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, January 2022 (see publication)

Deterministic chaos in the self-assembly of β sheet nanotubes from an amphipathic oligopeptide. Fengbin Wang, Ordy Gnewou, Shengyuan Wang, Tomasz Osinski, Xiaobing Zuo, Edward H Egelman, Vincent P Conticello Published in Matter, October 2021 (see publication)

Adnaviria: a New Realm for Archaeal Filamentous Viruses with Linear A-Form Double-Stranded DNA Genomes Mart Krupovic, Jens H Kuhn, Fengbin Wang, Diana P Baquero, Valerian V Dolja, Edward H Egelman, David Prangishvili, Eugene V Koonin Published in Journal of virology, May 2021 (see publication)

Cryo-EM is a powerful tool, but helical applications can have pitfalls. Edward H Egelman, Fengbin Wang Published in Soft matter, March 2021 (see publication)

Structural analysis of cross α-helical nanotubes provides insight into the designability of filamentous peptide nanomaterials. Fengbin Wang, Ordy Gnewou, Charles Modlin, Leticia C Beltran, Chunfu Xu, Zhangli Su, Puneet Juneja, Gevorg Grigoryan, Edward H Egelman, Vincent P Conticello Published in Nature communications, January 2021 (see publication)

Artificial Intracellular Filaments. Zhaoqianqi Feng, Huaimin Wang, Fengbin Wang, Younghoon Oh, Cristina Berciu, Qiang Cui, Edward H Egelman, Bing Xu Published in Cell reports. Physical science, August 2020 (see publication)

Structures of filamentous viruses infecting hyperthermophilic archaea explain DNA stabilization in extreme environments. Fengbin Wang, Diana P Baquero, Leticia C Beltran, Zhangli Su, Tomasz Osinski, Weili Zheng, David Prangishvili, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, August 2020 (see publication)

The structures of two archaeal type IV pili illuminate evolutionary relationships. Fengbin Wang, Diana P Baquero, Zhangli Su, Leticia C Beltran, David Prangishvili, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, July 2020 (see publication)

Atomic structure of the Campylobacter jejuni flagellar filament reveals how ε Proteobacteria escaped Toll-like receptor 5 surveillance Mark A B Kreutzberger, Cheryl Ewing, Frederic Poly, Fengbin Wang, Edward H Egelman Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, July 2020 (see publication)

Structure of a filamentous virus uncovers familial ties within the archaeal virosphere. Fengbin Wang, Diana P Baquero, Zhangli Su, Tomasz Osinski, David Prangishvili, Edward H Egelman, Mart Krupovic Published in Virus evolution, May 2020 (see publication)

Structural Determination of a Filamentous Chaperone to Fabricate Electronically Conductive Metalloprotein Nanowires. Yun X Chen, Nicole L Ing, Fengbin Wang, Dawei Xu, Nancy B Sloan, Nga T Lam, Daniel L Winter, Edward H Egelman, Allon I Hochbaum, Douglas S Clark, Dominic J Glover Published in ACS nano, April 2020 (see publication)

The structure of helical lipoprotein lipase reveals an unexpected twist in lipase storage. Kathryn H Gunn, Benjamin S Roberts, Fengbin Wang, Joshua D Strauss, Mario J Borgnia, Edward H Egelman, Saskia B Neher Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 2020 (see publication)

Structure and assembly of archaeal viruses. Diana P Baquero, Ying Liu, Fengbin Wang, Edward H Egelman, David Prangishvili, Mart Krupovic Published in Advances in virus research, January 2020 (see publication)

A packing for A-form DNA in an icosahedral virus. Fengbin Wang, Ying Liu, Zhangli Su, Tomasz Osinski, Guilherme A P de Oliveira, James F Conway, Stefan Schouten, Mart Krupovic, David Prangishvili, Edward H Egelman Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, October 2019 (see publication)

Ambidextrous helical nanotubes from self-assembly of designed helical hairpin motifs. Spencer A Hughes, Fengbin Wang, Shengyuan Wang, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Tomasz Osinski, Albina Orlova, Joseph S Wall, Xiaobing Zuo, Edward H Egelman, Vincent P Conticello Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, July 2019 (see publication)

An extensively glycosylated archaeal pilus survives extreme conditions. Fengbin Wang, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic, Mark A B Kreutzberger, Zhangli Su, Guilherme A P de Oliveira, Tomasz Osinski, Nicholas Sherman, Frank DiMaio, Joseph S Wall, David Prangishvili, Mart Krupovic, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature microbiology, May 2019 (see publication)

Structure of Microbial Nanowires Reveals Stacked Hemes that Transport Electrons over Micrometers. Fengbin Wang, Yangqi Gu, J Patrick O'Brien, Sophia M Yi, Sibel Ebru Yalcin, Vishok Srikanth, Cong Shen, Dennis Vu, Nicole L Ing, Allon I Hochbaum, Edward H Egelman, Nikhil S Malvankar Published in Cell, April 2019 (see publication)

Structural conservation in a membrane-enveloped filamentous virus infecting a hyperthermophilic acidophile. Ying Liu, Tomasz Osinski, Fengbin Wang, Mart Krupovic, Stefan Schouten, Peter Kasson, David Prangishvili, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, August 2018 (see publication)

Functional role of the type 1 pilus rod structure in mediating host-pathogen interactions. Caitlin N Spaulding, Henry Louis Schreiber, Weili Zheng, Karen W Dodson, Jennie E Hazen, Matt S Conover, Fengbin Wang, Pontus Svenmarker, Areli Luna-Rico, Olivera Francetic, Magnus Andersson, Scott Hultgren, Edward H Egelman Published in eLife, January 2018 (see publication)

Structural basis for high-affinity actin binding revealed by a β-III-spectrin SCA5 missense mutation. Adam W Avery, Michael E Fealey, Fengbin Wang, Albina Orlova, Andrew R Thompson, David D Thomas, Thomas S Hays, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, November 2017 (see publication)

A structural model of flagellar filament switching across multiple bacterial species. Fengbin Wang, Andrew M Burrage, Sandra Postel, Reece E Clark, Albina Orlova, Eric J Sundberg, Daniel B Kearns, Edward H Egelman Published in Nature communications, October 2017 (see publication)

Cryoelectron Microscopy Reconstructions of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Neisseria gonorrhoeae Type IV Pili at Sub-nanometer Resolution. Fengbin Wang, Mathieu Coureuil, Tomasz Osinski, Albina Orlova, Tuba Altindal, Gaël Gesbert, Xavier Nassif, Edward H Egelman, Lisa Craig Published in Structure (London, England : 1993), September 2017 (see publication)

Refined Cryo-EM Structure of the T4 Tail Tube: Exploring the Lowest Dose Limit. Weili Zheng, Fengbin Wang, Nicholas M I Taylor, Ricardo C Guerrero-Ferreira, Petr G Leiman, Edward H Egelman Published in Structure (London, England : 1993), August 2017 (see publication)