Erica Washington

Journal article mBio · October 8, 2025 Infections caused by fungal pathogens such as Candida and Cryptococcus are associated with high mortality rates, partly due to limitations in the current antifungal arsenal. This highlights the need for antifungal drug targets with novel mechanisms of acti ... Full text Link to item Cite

Celebrating the fifth edition of the International Symposium on Fungal Stress - ISFUS, a decade after its 2014 debut.

Journal article Fungal Biol · August 2025 The Fifth International Symposium on Fungal Stress (ISFUS) brought together in Brazil many of the leaders in the field of fungal stress responses, from fourteen countries, for four days of outstanding science ranging from basic research to studies with agr ... Full text Link to item Cite

A single amino acid in the Salmonella effector SarA/SteE triggers supraphysiological activation of STAT3 for anti-inflammatory gene expression.

Journal article Cell Rep · April 22, 2025 Salmonella causes ∼1 million cases of gastroenteritis annually in the United States. Critical to virulence are secreted effectors that reprogram host functions. We previously discovered the effector SarA facilitates phosphorylation of STAT3, inducing expre ... Full text Link to item Cite

Developing the trehalose biosynthesis pathway as an antifungal drug target.

Journal article NPJ Antimicrob Resist · April 14, 2025 Invasive fungal infections are responsible for millions of deaths worldwide each year. Therefore, focusing on innovative approaches to developing therapeutics that target fungal pathogens is critical. Here, we discuss targeting the fungal trehalose biosynt ... Full text Link to item Cite

Redox control of the deubiquitinating enzyme Ubp2 regulates translation during stress.

Journal article J Biol Chem · November 2024 Protein ubiquitination is essential to govern cells' ability to cope with harmful environments by regulating many aspects of protein dynamics from synthesis to degradation. As important as the ubiquitination process, the reversal of ubiquitin chains mediat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Structures of trehalose-6-phosphate synthase, Tps1, from the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans: A target for antifungals.

Journal article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · August 6, 2024 Invasive fungal diseases are a major threat to human health, resulting in more than 1.5 million annual deaths worldwide. The arsenal of antifungal therapeutics remains limited and is in dire need of drugs that target additional biosynthetic pathways that a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Single-cell genome-wide association reveals that a nonsynonymous variant in ERAP1 confers increased susceptibility to influenza virus.

Journal article Cell Genom · November 9, 2022 During pandemics, individuals exhibit differences in risk and clinical outcomes. Here, we developed single-cell high-throughput human in vitro susceptibility testing (scHi-HOST), a method for rapidly identifying genetic variants that confer resistance and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Multiple Respiratory Syncytial Virus Introductions Into a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Journal article J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc · March 26, 2021 BACKGROUND: Outbreaks of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are of concern because of the risk of severe disease in young infants. We describe an outbreak of RSV in a NICU and use whole genome sequencing (WGS) to bet ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Salmonella Secreted Effector SarA/SteE Mimics Cytokine Receptor Signaling to Activate STAT3.

Journal article Cell Host Microbe · January 8, 2020 Bacteria masterfully co-opt and subvert host signal transduction. As a paradigmatic example, Salmonella uses two type-3 secretion systems to inject effector proteins that facilitate Salmonella entry, establishment of an intracellular niche, and modulation ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pseudomonas syringae type III effector HopAF1 suppresses plant immunity by targeting methionine recycling to block ethylene induction.

Journal article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · June 21, 2016 HopAF1 is a type III effector protein of unknown function encoded in the genomes of several strains of Pseudomonas syringae and other plant pathogens. Structural modeling predicted that HopAF1 is closely related to deamidase proteins. Deamidation is the ir ... Full text Link to item Cite

What a difference a Dalton makes: bacterial virulence factors modulate eukaryotic host cell signaling systems via deamidation.

Journal article Microbiol Mol Biol Rev · September 2013 Pathogenic bacteria commonly deploy enzymes to promote virulence. These enzymes can modulate the functions of host cell targets. While the actions of some enzymes can be very obvious (e.g., digesting plant cell walls), others have more subtle activities. D ... Full text Link to item Cite

XopR, a type III effector secreted by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, suppresses microbe-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Journal article Mol Plant Microbe Interact · April 2012 Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae is the causal agent of bacterial blight of rice. The XopR protein, secreted into plant cells through the type III secretion apparatus, is widely conserved in xanthomonads and is predicted to play important roles in bacterial p ... Full text Link to item Cite