Yichen Li
Research interests: My research interest mainly focus on two direction. 1) The nucleocytoplasmic transport of biological molecules through the nuclear pore complexes in live mammal cells (NPCs). 2) The structure and dynamic of NPCs in live mammals cell.
1) The NPC is the only known gate on nuclear envelope (NE) mediating transport of molecules between the cytoplasm and nucleus. My research is to study the nucleocytoplasmic transport of macromolecules, such as nuclear transport receptor (NTRs), transcript factors and mRNA through NPC with the super-resolution microscopy.
2) The NPCs were found to be composed of multiple copies 30~ proteins, called nucleoporins (Nups). Of these Nups over 30% contain intrinsically disordered regions which include many phenylalanine-glycine repeats (FG-Nups). FG-Nups are believed to form a selectively permeable barrier within the NPCs and facilitate nuclear transport. Given the size of NPC and flexibility of FG-Nups, the spatial distribution of all FG-Nups in the live mammalian cells are obscured. Thus, I focus on exploring the spatial distribution of FG-Nups in live cells.
Publications
Nucleoplasmic signals promote directed transmembrane protein import simultaneously via multiple channels of nuclear pores. Mudumbi, K. C., Czapiewski, R., Ruba, A., Junod, S. L., Li, Y., Luo, W., … & Yang, W. – Nature Communications, 11(1), 1-14, 2020
Tingey M., Schnell S., Li Y., Junod S., Yu W., and Yang W.* – Nova Science Publishers (Invited book chapter). 2020
Nuclear export of mRNA molecules studied by SPEED microscopy
Y Li, SL Junod, A Ruba, JM Kelich, W Yang – Methods, 2018
Nuclear Transport and Accumulation of Smad Proteins Studied by Single-Molecule Microscopy
Y Li, W Luo, W Yang – Biophysical journal, 2018