Yiping Wang, Ph.D.
Gene regulation and microbe functional genomics
Professor, College of Life Sciences, Peking University
tel：
E-mail：wangyp@pku.edu.cn
1.Mechanism of gene regulation in Escherichia coli and related bacteria
2.Gene regulatory network in Escherichia coli and related bacteria, especially the regulatory linkage between of carbon and nitrogen metabolism
3.Mechanism of signal transduction in two component regulatory systems
4.Synthetic biology and biological nitrogen fixation
5.Systems biology on nitrogen metabolism in Escherichia coli
Synthetic biology and biological nitrogen fixation: minimal gene requirement for the FeFe nitrogenase system in Escherichia coli. In a previous study we employed BioBrick interfaces to reconstruct a gene cluster containing the seven nif operons of the MoFe nitrogense system from Kelebsiella pneumoniae (Wang et al., 2013 PLoS ONE). In this study, we constructed an artificial hybrid FeFe-nitrogenase system by replacing the K. pneumoniae nifHDKTY operon with the PnifH controlled A. vinelandii anfHDGKOR operon in E. coli. This hybrid FeFe system showed almost the same nitrogenase activity as in its original host. Deletion analysis indicated that the nitrogenase activity of this hybrid FeFe system, as measured by acetylene reduction and 15N assimilation, is not dependent on the presence of nifENX, nifM, nifQ or anfOR. We have therefore defined a minimal FeFe nitrogenase in E. coli with only 10 genes, comprising the structural genes anfHDGK, the nifBUSV genes required for iron-sulfur cluster and metallocluster biosynthesis, with nifF and nifJ providing electron transport to the alternative nitrogenase. Using this system, we demonstrate that the pathway for biosynthesis of the iron-only cofactor (FeFeco) is likely to be simpler than the Mo-dependent (FeMoco) equivalent (Yang et al., 2014 PNAS). This minimal Anf system has potential implications for engineering diazotrophy in eukaryotes, particularly in compartments (e.g., organelles) where molybdenum may be limiting.
Tang YQ, Qin DB, Tian ZX, Chen WX, Ma YX, Wang JL, Yang JG, Yan DL, Dixon R, Wang YP. (2023) Diurnal switches in diazotrophic lifestyle increase nitrogen contribution to cereals. Nat. Commun., 14: 7516.
Yang JG, Xiang N, Liu YH, Guo CY, Li CY, Li H, Cai SY, Dixon R, Wang YP. (2023) Organelle-dependent polyprotein designs enable stoichiometric expression of nitrogen fixation components targeted to mitochondria. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 120: e2305142120.
Tian ZX, Wang YP. (2023) Identification of cpxS mutational resistome in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Antimicrob. Agents Ch., 67: e0092123.
Batista MB, Brett P, Appia-Ayme C, Wang YP, Dixon R. (2021) Disrupting hierarchical control of nitrogen fixation enables carbon-dependent regulation of ammonia excretion in soil diazotrophs. PLoS Genet., 17: e1009617.
Xiang N, Guo CY, Liu JW, Xu H, Dixon R, Yang JG, Wang YP. (2020) Using synthetic biology to overcome barriers to stable expression of nitrogenase in eukaryotic organelles. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 117: 16537-16545.
Jiang F, Li N, Wang X, Cheng J, Huang Y, Yang Y, Yang J, Cai B,Wang YP, Jin Q, Gao N. (2019) Cryo-EM structure and assembly of an extracellular contractile injection system. Cell, 177: 370-383.
Zhexian Tian, Jianguo Yang, Fengmei Li, Debin Qin, Lina Song, Yuanxi Ma, Hao Xu, Wenxi Chen, Chenyu Li, Yiheng Liu
