ZI Jiachen
Principal Investigator
Education
2012-2014: Postdoctoral fellow, natural product biosynthesis, Iowa State University
2011-2012 : Postdoctoral fellow, natural product biosynthesis, Utah State University
2009-2011 : Postdoctoral fellow, natural products chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago
2005-2008: Ph.D., medicinal chemistry, Institute of Materia Medica (IMM), Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
2001-2004: M.S., pharmacognosy, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University
1997-2001: B.S., pharmacy, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University
Research interests
Plant natural products are significant sources of drugs. Contents of plant metabolites of interest are often low, and these compounds often possess extremely complex structures, making them difficult to be chemically synthesized. Hence, the availability of quantities of pure compounds poses serious challenges in drug development from plant natural products. Zi Jiachen's research lab is interested in biosynthesis of plant pharmaceutical natural products (particularly terpenoids) and microbial production of these compounds and their analogues by metabolic engineering and combinatorial biosynthesis. He uses synthetic biology approaches in combination with CRISPR-Cas9 to globally screen rate-limiting enzymes in the target pathways and adopts multi-omics techniques to clarify unknown metabolic regulation logics. Based on this knowledge, he designs more rational metabolic circuits. He has recently constructed de novo biosynthetic approaches of sandalwood oils, silybins and isosilybins for the first time, and deciphered the catalytic mechanism of germacrene synthase-like enzymes.
1. Green Production of Silybin and Isosilybin by Merging Metabolic Engineering Approaches and Enzymatic Catalysis. Metab. Eng. 2020, 59: 44-52.
2. Reconstruction of the Biosynthetic Pathway of Santalols under Control of the GAL Regulatory System in Yeast. ACS Synth. Biol. 2020, 9(2): 449-456.
3. Enzyme Promiscuity versus Fidelity in two Sesquiterpene Cyclases (TEAS versus ATAS). ACS Catal. 2020, 10: 1470–1484.
4. Characterization of a Sesquiterpene Synthase Catalyzing Formationof Cedrol and Two Diastereoisomers of Tricho-Acorenol from Euphorbia fischeriana . J. Nat. Prod. 2021, 84, 1780−1786.
5. Biosynthesis of Lycosantalonol, A Cis-prenyl Derived Diterpenoid. J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2014, 136: 16951-16953.
6. To Gibberellins and Beyond! Surveying the Evolution of (Di)terpenoid Metabolism. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. , 2014, 65, 259-286.
7. Biotechnological Production of Betulinic Acid and Derivatives and Their Applications. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2020, 104(8): 3339-3348.
8. Identification of RoCYP01 (CYP716A155) Enables Construction of Engineered Yeast for High-yield Production of Betulinic Acid. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2019, 103(17): 7029-7039.
9. Enhance Production of Diterpenoids in Yeast by Overexpression of the Fused Enzyme of ERG20 and Its Mutant mERG20. J. Biotechnol. 2020, 307: 29-34.
10. Characterization of Guaiene Synthases from Stellera Chamaejasme L. Flowers and Their Application In de novo Production of (-)-Rotundone in Yeast. J. Agric. Food Chem. , 2020, 68(10): 3214-3219.
