Name: Liang Zhang

Title： Professor

Email: liangzhang2014@sjtu.edu.cn

Tel: (+86)-21-63846590-776942

Research Interests

The research field of my lab spans a broad range of chemical biology, structure biology, epigenetics, enzymology, nucleic acid biology, and drug discovery. We are interested in studying the enzymes involved in nucleic acid (purine and pyrimidine) biosynthesis, fatty acid biosynthesis, and dynamic modification (DNA/RNA methylation/demethylation, fatty acid modifications, etc). These processes are vital for all living cells, and the biofunctions of enzymes involved in these processes are restrictively regulated spatio-temporally. However, the mechanisms that how tumor cells utilize these enzymes and bypass the restrictive regulation to support their unconstrained proliferation remain unclear. We are interested in studying the structural and biochemical based catalytic and regulation mechanisms of these enzymes that can be specifically utilized by tumor cells, and establishing efficient high throughput drug screening platforms for novel leading drug compounds discovery against these tumor-specific drug targets in these processes.

Ten Selected Papers

*co-corresponding authors; #co-first authors

1.T. R. Fu#, L. P. Liu#, Q. L. Yang#, Y. X. Wang, P. Xu, L. Zhang, S. E. Liu, Q. Dai, Q. J. Ji, G. L. Xu, C. He, C. Luo* and L. Zhang*. Thymine DNA glycosylase recognizes the geometry alteration of minor grooves induced by 5-formylcytosine and 5-carboxylcytosine. Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 7407.

2.S. Q. Shen#, X. D Hang#, J. J. Zhuang#, L. Zhang*, H. K. Bi* and L. Zhang*. A back-door Phenylalanine coordinates the stepwise hexameric loading of acyl carrier protein by the fatty acid biosynthesis enzyme β-hydroxyacyl-acyl carrier protein dehydratase (FabZ). Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2019, 128, 5.

3.X. Zhang#, L. H. Wei#, Y. X. Wang#, Y. Xiao#, J. Liu, W. Zhang, N. Yan, G. B. Amu, X. J. Tang, L. Zhang* and G. F. Jia*. Structural insights into FTO's catalytic mechanism for the demethylation of multiple RNA substrates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2019, 116, 2919.

4.L. Zhang, J. F. Xiao, J. R. Xu, T. R. Fu, Z. W. Cao, L. Zhu, H. Z. Chen, X. Shen, H. L. Jiang and L. Zhang*. Crystal structure of FabZ-ACP complex reveals a dynamic seesaw-like catalytic mechanism of dehydratase in fatty acid biosynthesis. Cell Res. 2016, 26, 1330.

5.L. Zhang#, W. Z. Chen#, L. M. Iyer, J. Hu, G. Wang, Y. Fu, M. Yu, Q. Dai, L. Aravind and C. He. A TET homologue protein from Coprinopsis cinerea (CcTET) that biochemically converts 5-Methylcytosine to 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine, 5-Formylcytosine, and 5-Carboxylcytosine. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 4801.

6.L. Zhang#, K. E. Szulwach#, G. C. Hon#, C. X. Song, B. Park, M. Yu, X. Y. Lu, Q. Dai, X. Wang, C. R. Street, H. P. Tan, J. H. Min, B. Ren, P. Jin, C. He. Tet-mediated covalent labelling of 5-methylcytosine for its genome-wide detection and sequencing. Nat. Commun. 2013, 4, 1517.

7.L. Zhang, X. Y. Lu, J. Y. Lu, H. H. Liang, Q. Dai, G. L. Xu, C. Luo, H. L. Jiang, C. He. Thymine DNA glycosylase specifically recognizes 5-carboxylcytosine-modified DNA. Nat. Chem. Biol. 2012, 8, 328.