Chuan He
Chuan He
Born1972
Guizhou, China
Alma materUniversity of Science and Technology of China (B.S.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Known forEpigenetics, DNA Methylation
AwardsSearle Scholar Award (2003)
Beckman Young Investigators Award (2005)
Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research (2017)
ACS Chemical Biology Lectureship (2019)
Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2023)
Scientific career
FieldsChemical Biology, Genetics
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago
Doctoral advisorStephen J. Lippard
Other academic advisorsGregory L. Verdine

Chuan He (Chinese: 何川) is a Chinese-American chemical biologist. He currently serves as the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[1] He is best known for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation.[2] He was awarded the 2023 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for his work in discovering and deciphering reversible RNA methylation in post-transcriptional gene expression regulation in addition to his contributions to the invention of TAB-seq, a biochemical method that can map 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) at base-resolution genome-wide, as well as hmC-Seal, a method that covalently labels 5hmC for its detection and profiling.[2]

Education

He graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. After undergoing his Ph.D. training with Stephen J. Lippard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he worked under Gregory L. Verdine as a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. He subsequently became a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago in 2002.[3]

Research

In 2010, He proposed that RNA modifications could be reversible and may have regulatory roles.[2] He and colleagues subsequently discovered the first RNA demethylase that oxidatively reverses N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation in mammalian messenger RNA (mRNA) in 2011.[4] The existence of m6A in mRNA was discovered in 1974 in both eukaryotic and viral mRNAs; however, the biological significance and functional role were not known before He’s work. This methylation is the most abundant internal modification in mammalian mRNA. In 2012, two independent studies reported transcriptome-wide mapping of m6A in mammalian cells and tissues,[5][6] revealing a unique distribution pattern. He and co-workers identified and characterized the direct reader proteins for m6A, which impact the stability and the translation efficiency of m6A-modified mRNA, elucidating functional roles of mRNA methylation.[7][8] His group also purified the methyltransferase complex that mediates this methylation.[9]

The He laboratory also studies DNA methylation. He invented TAB-seq, a method that can map 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) at base-resolution genome-wide, as well as hmC-Seal, a method that covalently labels 5hmC for its detection and profiling.[10][11] Together with two other research groups, He and co-workers have revealed the DNA N6-methyldeoxyadenosine as a new methylation mark that could affect gene expression in eukaryotes.[12][13][14]

Honors and awards

References

  1. ^ Chuan He Profile at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute hhmi.org Retrieved 07-28-2015
  2. ^ a b c He C (November 2010). "Grand Challenge Commentary: RNA epigenetics?". Nat. Chem. Biol. 6 (12): 863–865. doi:10.1038/nchembio.482. PMID 21079590.
  3. ^ Chuan He Faculty Page at the University of Chicago chemistry.uchicago.edu Retrieved 07-28-2015
  4. ^ Jia G, Fu Y, Zhao X, Dai Q, Zheng G, Yang Y, Yi C, Lindahl T, Pan T, Yang YG, He C (December 2011). "N6-Methyladenosine in nuclear RNA is a major substrate of the obesity-associated FTO". Nat. Chem. Biol. 7 (12): 885–7. doi:10.1038/nchembio.687. PMC 3218240. PMID 22002720.
  5. ^ Dominissini D, Moshitch-Moshkovitz S, Schwartz S, Salmon-Divon M, Ungar L, Osenberg S, Cesarkas K, Jacob-Hirsch J, Amariglio N, Kupiec M, Sorek R, Rechavi G (May 2012). "Topology of the human and mouse m6A RNA methylomes revealed by m6A-seq". Nature. 485 (7397): 201–6. Bibcode:2012Natur.485..201D. doi:10.1038/nature11112. PMID 22575960. S2CID 3517716.
  6. ^ Meyer KD, Saletore Y, Zumbo P, Elemento O, Mason CE, Jaffrey SR (May 2012). "Comprehensive Analysis of mRNA Methylation Reveals Enrichment in 3' UTRs and near Stop Codons". Cell. 149 (7): 1635–46. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.05.003. PMC 3383396. PMID 22608085.
  7. ^ Wang X, Lu Z, Gomez A, Hon GC, Yue Y, Han D, Fu Y, Parisien M, Dai Q, Jia G, Ren B, Pan T, He C (January 2014). "N6-Methyladenosine-dependent regulation of messenger RNA stability". Nature. 505 (7481): 117–120. Bibcode:2014Natur.505..117W. doi:10.1038/nature12730. PMC 3877715. PMID 24284625.
  8. ^ Wang X, Zhao BS, Roundtree IA, Lu Z, Han D, Ma H, Weng X, Chen K, Shi H, He C (June 2015). "N6-methyladenosine modulates messenger RNA translation efficiency". Cell. 161 (6): 1388–1399. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.05.014. PMC 4825696. PMID 26046440.
  9. ^ Liu J, Yue Y, Han D, Wang X, Fu Y, Zhang L, Jia G, Yu M, Lu Z, Deng X, Dai Q, Chen W, He C (2014). "A METTL3-METTL14 complex mediates mammalian nuclear RNA N6-adenosine methylation". Nat. Chem. Biol. 10 (2): 93–95. doi:10.1038/nchembio.1432. PMC 3911877. PMID 24316715.
  10. ^ Yu M, Hon GC, Szulwach KE, Song CX, Zhang L, Kim A, Li XK, Dai Q, Shen Y, Park B, Min JH, Jin P, Ren B, He C (June 2012). "Base-resolution analysis of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine in the mammalian genome". Cell. 149 (6): 1368–1380. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2012.04.027. PMC 3589129. PMID 22608086.
  11. ^ Song CX, Szulwach KE, Fu Y, Dai Q, Yi C, Li X, Li Y, Chen CH, Zhang W, Jian X, Wang J, Zhang L, Looney TJ, Zhang B, Godley LA, Hicks LM, Lahn BT, Jin P, He C (2011). "Selective chemical labeling reveals the genome-wide distribution of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine". Nat. Biotechnol. 29 (1): 68–72. doi:10.1038/nbt.1732. PMC 3107705. PMID 21151123.
  12. ^ Fu Y, Luo GZ, Chen K, Deng X, Yu M, Han D, Hao Z, Liu J, Lu X, Doré LC, Weng X, Ji Q, Mets L, He C (May 2015). "N6-methyldeoxyadenosine marks active transcription start sites in chlamydomonas". Cell. 161 (4): 879–892. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.04.010. PMC 4427561. PMID 25936837.
  13. ^ Greer EL, Blanco MA, Gu L, Sendinc E, Liu J, Aristizábal-Corrales D, Hsu CH, Aravind L, He C, Shi Y (May 2015). "DNA methylation on N6-adenine in C. elegans". Cell. 161 (4): 868–878. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.04.005. PMC 4427530. PMID 25936839.
  14. ^ Zhang G, Huang H, Liu D, Cheng Y, Liu X, Zhang W, Yin R, Zhang D, Zhang P, Liu J, Li C, Liu B, Luo Y, Zhu Y, Zhang N, He S, He C (May 2015). "N6-methyladenine DNA modification in Drosophila". Cell. 161 (4): 893–906. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2015.04.018. PMID 25936838.
  15. ^ "Chuan He". Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Archived from the original on 1 August 2018. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  16. ^ "2017 Prize Winners". Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  17. ^ "The ACS Chemical Biology Young Investigator Award – Division of Biological Chemistry". Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  18. ^ "Awards". CHINESE BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATORS SOCIETY. Retrieved 2023-03-23.
  19. ^ Wolf Prize in Chemistry 2023

External links

Authority control databases
Laureates of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry
ACS Chemical Biology Lectureship
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