Welcome to the Vogel Laboratory
Schematic of the periplasmic portion of the Legionella Dot/Icm type IV secretion system.
(Left panel) Components whose structures are not known or are confidently predictable are depicted as circles (e.g. DotC) or as the shape of densities seen in the subtomogram averages or difference maps (e.g. DotH and IcmX). Polypeptide links to the outer membrane are shown as dotted lines. The sequences in DotG with unknown structure are shown as solid lines with a speculative path. A large number of transmembrane helices are not shown for inner membrane proteins (DotA, DotE, DotL, DotM, DotP, DotU, DotV, IcmV and IcmT). In addition, cytoplasmic components of the system are not shown. Lipids are shown in grey (OM is outer membrane and IM is inner membrane) and peptidoglycan in brown (PG). (Right panel) Three-dimensional (3D) representation of the Dot/Icm complex showing a windowed secretion chamber (salmon, DotH; white, DotD; green, DotK; cyan, DotC), wings (yellow, DotF) and the secretion channel (red, DotG). Similar to the left panel, the cytoplasmic components are not shown. In this 3D representation, IcmF, IcmX and DotA are not visible. Scale bar, 10 nm. Originally published as Figure 2 in Ghosal et al 2019 Nat Micro.
Research interests
The Vogel laboratory studies how the bacterial pathogen Legionella pneumophila is able to survive and replicate within alveolar macrophages, thereby causing a type of pneumonia called Legionnaires’ Disease. Our work focuses on the Dot/Icm type IV secretion system (T4SS), which Legionella uses to translocate over 300 effectors into its host cells.
Research projects
Project#1. Polar localization of the Legionella Dot/Icm T4SS.
Project#2. Role of the T4SS chaperones found in the Legionella type IV coupling protein (LT4CP) subcomplex.
Project#3. Global structural analysis of the Legionella Dot/Icm T4SS by cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM).
We currently have openings for graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research technicians.
If you have questions about current projects, or are interested in learning what research and job opportunites are available, please contact Dr. Joseph Vogel at jvogel@wustl.edu.