Education

2015 Ph.D. Biology, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
2010 B.Sc. Biology,School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, China

Work experience

Jan. 2021– presentPrincipal Investigator

The Institute of Biomedical Sciences (IBS) & Shanghai Fifth People's Hospital

Fudan University, Shanghai

Jun. 2019– Dec. 2020 Research-track Assistant Professor

School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, Hangzhou, China

Mar. 2017– May 2017Visiting Scholar

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Dec. 2015– Jun. 2019 Postdoctoral Fellow

School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Contact

Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032 Tel: +86-21-54237998

Email: zyq_lab@fudan.edu.cn

Awards & honors

2020 Shanghai Rising-Star Program

Research Areas

Structural biology using cryo-electron microscopy; In situ structural analysis by cryo-electron tomography.

Invited Lectures

Jan. 2022 Symposium and Training Course on in situ Imaging by Cryo-EM in University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China (Speaker)

Oct. 2021 Academic Annual Conference of National Electron Microscopy, Donguan, China (Speaker)

Sep. 2021 7th National Symposium on Cryo-electron Microscopy and Structural Biology, Shenzhen, China (Speaker)

Jun. 2021 26th Shanghai Structural Biology Conference, Shanghai, China (Speaker)

Sep. 2018 8th International Conference on Electron Tomography, Les Diablerets, Switzerland (Participant)

Aug. 2017 Workshop for Sub-tomogram Averaging with Dynamo, Basel, Switzerland (Participant)

Jun. 2017 Women in Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (Speaker)

May 2015 9th Asian Biophysics Association Symposium, Shangyu, China (Speaker)

Jun. 2014 Gordon Research Conference: 3DEM, Girona, Spain (Poster)

May 2013 Three-Dimensional Electron Microscopy Forum, Beijing, China (Speaker)

Research interest

We mainly focus on structural and functional studies of super-large bio-macromolecular machines using cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) and cryo-EM single particle analysis. The nuclear pore complex, composed of about 1000 protein subunits with a molecular weight of 110 MDa, is the largest macromolecular machine in cells, the assembly mechanism of which is a major scientific problem in life science. Previously, we made major breakthroughs on the structural and functional studies of the nuclear pore complex. 1. We discovered the elaborate structure of the luminal ring of the nuclear pore complex for the first time. 2. We resolved the cytoplasmic ring of the nuclear pore complex from previously reported 20-angstrom to near-atomic resolution for the first time, making a major breakthrough in the resolution improvement of the nuclear pore complex. By combining cryo-focused ion beam (FIB) milling and cryo-ET approaches, we aim at observing the structure and three-dimensional distribution of biological super-complex in situ.

Selected Publications

Jinghua Xu, Jiuqing Wang, Aijun Liu, Yanqing Zhang*, Xiang Gao*. (2021). Structural and functional analysis of SsaV cytoplasmic domain and variable linker states in the context of the InvA-SsaV chimeric protein. Microbiology Spectrum9, e0125121 (*: corresponding)
Yanqing Zhang^#, Sai Li^#, Chao Zeng^#, Gaoxingyu Huang^#, Xuechen Zhu^#, Qifan Wang, Kunpeng Wang, Qiang Zhou, Chuangye Yan, Wusheng Zhang, Guangwen Yang, Minhao Liu, Qinghua Tao, Jianlin Lei, Yigong Shi*. (2020). Molecular architecture of the luminal ring of the Xenopus laevis nuclear pore complex. Cell Research 30, 532-540.

Featured on the COVER; F1000Prime Recommendation

Gaoxingyu Huang^#, Yanqing Zhang^#, Xuechen Zhu^#, Chao Zeng^#, Qifan Wang, Qiang Zhou, Qinghua Tao, Minhao Liu, Jianlin Lei, Chuangye Yan, Yigong Shi*. (2020). Structure of the cytoplasmic ring of the Xenopus laevis nuclear pore complex by cryo-electron microscopy single particle analysis.Cell Research 30, 520-531.

Featured on the COVER

Qiang Su, Feizhuo Hu, Yuxia Liu, Xiaofei Ge, Changlin Mei, Shengqiang Yu, Aiwen Shen, Qiang Zhou, Chuangye Yan, Jianlin Lei, Yanqing Zhang*, Xiaodong Liu* & Tingliang Wang*. (2018). Cryo-EM structure of the polycystic kidney disease-like channel PKD2L1. Nature Communications9, 1192. (*: corresponding)
Yanqing Zhang^#, Zhengtao Xiao^#, Qin Zou, Jianhuo Fang, Qifan Wang, Xuerui Yang*, Ning Gao*. (2017). Ribosome profiling reveals genome-wide cellular translational regulation upon heat stress in Escherichia coli. Genomics Proteomics & Bioinformatics15, 324-330.
Yanqing Zhang, Chandra Sekhar Mandava, Wei Cao, Xiaojing Li, Dejiu Zhang, Ningning Li, Yixiao Zhang, Xiaoxiao Zhang, Yan Qin, Kaixia Mi, Jianlin Lei*, Suparna Sanyal*, Ning Gao*. (2015). HflX is a ribosome-splitting factor rescuing stalled ribosomes under stress conditions. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology22, 906-913.
Xiaoxiao Zhang^#, Kaige Yan^#, Yixiao Zhang, Ningning Li, Chengying Ma, Zhifei Li, Yanqing Zhang, Boya Feng, Jing Liu, Yadong Sun, Yanji Xu, Jianlin Lei*, Ning Gao*. (2014). Structural insights into the function of a unique tandem GTPase EngA in bacterial ribosome assembly. Nucleic Acids Research42, 13430-13439.
Boya Feng, Chandra Sekhar Mandava, Qiang Guo, Jie Wang, Wei Cao, Ningning Li, Yixiao Zhang, Yanqing Zhang, Zhixin Wang, Jiawei Wu, Suparna Sanyal*, Jianlin Lei*, Ning Gao*. (2014). Structural and functional insights into the mode of action of a universally conserved Obg GTPase. PLoS Biology 12, e1001866.