Ms. Yifan Wang and other graduate students in Dr. Liu’s laboratory used a single-crystal EPR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography to determine intermediates and high-resolution crystal structure of key dioxygenase enzyme involved in tryptophan metabolism and NAD+ biosynthesis. Their work, including the enzyme action movie, has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2005327117). It has the potential to provide new targets for drug development. “This has been a massive effort. Yifan and others have worked on this project tirelessly for many years,” said Dr. Liu, Yifan’s advisor. Yifan is also a co-author on other Liu’s papers published recently in Chem. Soc. Rev., JBC, Angew. Chem., ACS Catal. (Editor’s Choice article), Nat. Chem. Biol., and JACS. Her publication record reflects the high-quality training she has received in the Chemistry Department of UTSA.
