Professor

Dr. ZhiCao Yue earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Pathology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA (supervisor: Dr. Cheng-Ming Chuong). Before that, Dr Yue did his undergraduate and graduate study in the Department of Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. After a postdoctoral training in UCLA, Dr Yue returned China in 2009 and became a Professor in the Institute of Life Sciences, Fuzhou University. Dr Yue joined Shenzhen University School of Medicine in 2019.

Dr. Yue’s laboratory works on skin development and diseases, and using skin as models to dissect out the mechanism of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.  We have defined the stem cells and regulatory logics for feather regeneration (Yue et al., Nature 2005; Yue et al., Dev Biol 2012; Chu et al., Dev Biol 2014; Lin et al., Development 2018). We also defined the principles guiding the formation of tissue architectures (Yue et al., PNAS 2006; Lin and Yue, Development 2018; Cheng et al., Nat Comm 2018). Moreover, using feather and hair as models, we found that Shh signaling is a key mediator of chemotherapy-induced tissue damage (Xie et al., JID 2015; Haslam, JID in press), and described how radiotherapy damages skin (Liao et al., JID 2016; Xie et al., JID 2017; Wang et al., Exp Dermatol 2018; Gao et al., Exp Dermatol 2019).

Research Interests:

(1) Skin development and diseases. We study how skin is formed and its regeneration after damage. Vitiligo, a skin pigmentation disorder, is currently under investigation in collaboration with local dermatologists.  

(2) Radiation biology. We use skin as a model to study how normal tissue is damaged in radiotherapy. Principles learned here will be examined in cancer therapy to explore better protocols in clinical oncology.

Research Projects:

1. Exploring novel regulatory mechanism of sonic hedgehog gene expression through investigating how chemotherapy damages the hair follicle (National Natural Science Foundation, China 31871468; 2019/01-2022/12).

2. The functional significance of desmosome structure change in radiation-induced skin damage (National Natural Science Foundation, China 81673094; 2017/01-2020/12).

3. Using hair and feather models to investigate how chemotherapy damages normal tissue (National Natural Science Foundation, China 31371472; 2014/01-2014/12).

4. Non-cannonical Wnt signaling regulates feather cell shape and tissue formation (National Natural Science Foundation, China 31071285; 2011/01-2013/12).

Selected Peer-reviewed Publications:

1. Cheng D, Yan X, Qiu G, Zhang J, Wang H, Feng T,Tian Y, Xu H, Wang M, He W, Wu P, Widelitz RB, Chuong CM, Yue Z*. Contraction of basal filopodia controls periodic feather branching via Notch and FGF signaling. Nat Commun 9(1): 1345, 2018.

2. Lin X, Gao Q, Zhu L, Zhou G, Ni S, Han H, Yue Z*. Long noncoding RNAs regulate Wnt signaling during feather regeneration. Development 145(21). pii: dev162388, 2018.

3.Xie G, Ao X, Lin T, Zhou G, Wang M, Wang H, Chen Y, Li X, Xu B*, He W, Han H, Ramot Y, Paus R, Yue Z*. E-cadherin-mediated cell contact controls the epidermal damage response in radiation dermatitis. J Invest Dermatol 137(8): 1731-1739, 2017.

4.Yue Z, Jiang TX, Widelitz RB, Chuong CM. Wnt3a gradient converts radial to bilateral feather symmetry via topological arrangement of epithelia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103(4): 951-955, 2006.

5.Yue Z, Jiang TX, Widelitz RB, Chuong CM. Mapping stem cell activities in the feather follicle. Nature 438(7070): 1026-1029, 2005.