Prof. ZHANG Lixin, dean of the College of Life Sciences, Henan University, gives a lecture at IHB, Nov. 9. (Credit: IHB)

Prof. ZHANG Lixin, dean of the College of Life Sciences, Henan University, visited Institute of Hydrobilogy (IHB) on November 9^th. He gave a lecture entitled “Protein transport and sorting within chloroplasts” during his stay at IHB.  

In the lecture, Prof. Zhang shared his research on the molecular mechanisms of chloroplast protein transport which was recently published in Cell. He explained the mechanism of chloroplast outer membrane transporter (TOC), inner membrane transporter (TIC) and how they coordinated the chloroplast protein transport.  

Zhang’s group has just identified a key mechanism of chloroplast protein transport and sorting, indicating that the transfer of STTs mediates substrate proteins to cpTat transport pathways by phase separation. This work suggests that phase separation is a universal mechanism of chloroplast protein transport and sorting.  

Prof. Zhang is a national candidate for the "New Century Millions of Talent Projects", a winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and the leader of a number of National Key Science and Technology Projects. In addition, he is the associate editor of the journal Photosynthesis Research, the member of the editorial boards of Advance in Photosynthesis and Respiration, Molecular Plant, among others, and the committee member of Scientific Advisory for Plant Cell Physiology.