Isabelle Baconguis, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Vollum Institute
  • Assistant Scientist, Vollum Institute
  • Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, School of Medicine
  • Neuroscience Graduate Program, School of Medicine
  • Program in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, School of Medicine

Biography

Isabelle Baconguis graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Biochemistry in 2005. She remained at the University of Pennsylvania for two years studying glutamate receptors. She joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU in 2007. During her doctoral research at the Vollum Institute, she studied acid sensing ion channels (ASICs), members of the superfamily of amiloride-sensitive and Na+-selective trimeric ion channels. Using a combination of x-ray crystallography and electrophysiology, she exploited toxin-dependent modulation of ASIC function to elaborate molecular mechanisms of gating, selectivity and ion channel block. She joined the Vollum Insitute as a Vollum fellow in 2013 and was promoted to assistant scientist in 2016.

The Baconguis lab is pursuing atomic-resolution mechanisms of sodium-selective and voltage-independent ion channels involved in a spectrum of processes ranging from synaptic transmission to regulation of salt homeostasis.

Education and training

  • Degrees

    • B.A., 2005, University of Pennsylvania
    • Ph.D., 2013, Oregon Health & Science University

Areas of interest

  • x-ray crystallography and electrophysiology
  • cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM)
  • sodium channels
  • ion channels
  • channel assembly, channel gating, and ion selectivity
  • protein biochemistry
  • structural biology

Honors and awards

  • NIH Director's Early Independence Award (2013-2018)
  • Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, NIH (2011-2013)

Publications

Selected publications

  • — Most Recent —Noreng S, Posert R, Bharadwaj A, Houser A, Baconguis I. (2020) Molecular principles of assembly, activation, and inhibition in epithelial sodium channel. eLife 2020 Jul 30; 9:e59038

Publications

  • Structural insights into subunit-dependent functional regulation in epithelial sodium channels

    Structure
    1. Alexandra Houser
    2. Isabelle Baconguis
  • Appia

    PloS one
    1. Richard Posert
    2. Isabelle Baconguis
  • Sensitive genetically encoded sensors for population and subcellular imaging of cAMP in vivo

    Nature Methods
    1. Crystian I. Massengill
    2. Landon Bayless-Edwards
    3. Cesar C. Ceballos
    4. Elizabeth R. Cebul
    5. James Cahill
    6. Arpita Bharadwaj
    7. Evan Wilson
    8. Maozhen Qin
    9. Matthew R. Whorton
    10. Isabelle Baconguis
    11. Bing Ye
    12. Tianyi Mao
    13. Haining Zhong
  • Light-coupled cryo-plunger for time-resolved cryo-EM

    Journal of Structural Biology
    1. Nate Yoder
    2. Farzad Jalali-Yazdi
    3. Sigrid Noreng
    4. Alexandra Houser
    5. Isabelle Baconguis
    6. Eric Gouaux
  • Molecular principles of assembly, activation, and inhibition in epithelial sodium channel

    eLife
    1. Sigrid Noreng
    2. Richard Posert
    3. Arpita Bharadwaj
    4. Alexandra Houser
    5. Isabelle Baconguis
  • Structure of the human epithelial sodium channel by cryo-electron microscopy

    eLife
    1. Sigrid Noreng
    2. Arpita Bharadwaj
    3. Richard Posert
    4. Craig Yoshioka
    5. Isabelle Baconguis
  • Architecture of fully occupied GluA2 AMPA receptor-TARP complex elucidated by cryo-EM

    Nature
    1. Yan Zhao
    2. Shanshuang Chen
    3. Craig Yoshioka
    4. Isabelle Baconguis
    5. Eric Gouaux
  • Screening and large-scale expression of membrane proteins in mammalian cells for structural studies

    Nature protocols
    1. April Goehring
    2. Chia Hsueh Lee
    3. Kevin H. Wang
    4. Jennifer Carlisle Michel
    5. Derek P. Claxton
    6. Isabelle Baconguis
    7. Thorsten Althoff
    8. Suzanne Fischer
    9. K. Christopher Garcia
    10. Eric Gouaux
  • X-ray structure of acid-sensing ion channel 1-snake toxin complex reveals open state of a Na+-selective channel

    Cell
    1. Isabelle Baconguis
    2. Christopher J. Bohlen
    3. April Goehring
    4. David Julius
    5. Eric Gouaux
  • Structural plasticity and dynamic selectivity of acid-sensing ion channelspider toxin complexes

    Nature
    1. Isabelle Baconguis
    2. Eric Gouaux
  • Evidence for a third sodium-binding site in glutamate transporters suggests an ion/substrate coupling model

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
    1. H. Peter Larsson
    2. Xiaoyu Wang
    3. Bogdan Lev
    4. Isabelle Baconguis
    5. David A. Caplan
    6. Nicholas P. Vyleta
    7. Hans P. Koch
    8. Ana Diez-Sampedro
    9. Sergei Y. Noskov
  • Fyn-mediated phosphorylation of NR2B Tyr-1336 controls calpain-mediated NR2B cleavage in neurons and heterologous systems

    Journal of Biological Chemistry
    1. Hai Yan Wu
    2. Fu Chun Hsu
    3. Amy J. Gleichman
    4. Isabelle Baconguis
    5. Douglas A. Coulter
    6. David R. Lynch
  • N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-dependent regulation of the glutamate transporter excitatory amino acid carrier 1

    Journal of Biological Chemistry
    1. Elisa A. Waxman
    2. Isabelle Baconguis
    3. David R. Lynch
    4. Michael B. Robinson