Honggao Yan
Professor
  • B.S. 1982, Zhejiang University
  • M.S. 1984, China Agricultural University
  • Ph.D. 1991, The Ohio State University
  • Proctor & Gamble Fellow, 1990-1991, The Ohio State University
  • Human Frontier Science Program Fellow, 1991-1993, University of Wisconsin-Madison

yanh@msu.edu
313 Biochemistry Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1319
Office: 517-353-5282
Lab: 517-353-8786

Publication search:

Honggao Yan

Research Interests

The research in my laboratory is mainly in the area of protein biochemistry focusing on protein structure, function, and dynamics with applications to protein engineering and structure-based drug design. We study protein biochemistry from both structural and functional perspectives. Thus, a multidisciplinary approach, including molecular genetic, biochemical, bio-organic, biophysical, and computational methods, has been employed in our research. The main structural technique is multidimensional NMR spectroscopy, the most powerful spectroscopic technique that can be used not only to determine the three-dimensional structures of proteins but also to elucidate their chemical and dynamic properties in solution at atomic resolution. The thrust of our research is to understand the relationships between structure, function, and dynamics in enzymes, particularly enzymes in the folate biosynthetic pathway and nucleotide metabolism, because these enzymes are not only good model systems for addressing the important biochemical issues that we are interested in but also of great medical significance. MORE

Recent Publications

Liu A, Lu Z, Wang J, Yao L, Li Y, Yan H. (2008) NMR detection of bifurcated hydrogen bonds in large proteins. J Am Chem Soc. 130(8):2428-9.

Blaszczyk, J., Li, Y., Gan, J., Yan, H.*, and Ji, X.* (2007) Structural basis and catalytic mechanism for the aldolase and epimerase activities of Staphylococcus aureus dihydroneopterin aldolase. J. Mol. Biol. 368, 161-169.

Blaszczyk, J., Li, Y., Cherry, S., Alexandratos, J., Wu, W., Shaw G., Tropea, J. E., Waugh, D. S., Yan, H.*, and Ji, X.* (2007) Structure and activity of Yersinia pestis 6-hydroxymethyl-7,8-dihydropterin pyrophosphokinase as a novel target for the development of antiplague therapeutics. Acta Crystallogr. D63, in press.

Gan, J., Wu, Y., Prabakaran, P., Gu, Y., Li, Y., Andrykovitch, M., Liu, H., Gong, Y., Yan, H.*, and Ji, X.* (2007) Structural and biochemical analyses of shikimate dehydrogenase AroE from Aquifex aeolicus: implications for the catalytic mechanism. Biochemistry 46, 9513-9522.

Wang, Y., Li, Y., Wu, Y., and Yan, H. (2007) Mechanism of dihydroneopterin aldolase: NMR, equilibrium and transient kinetic studies of the Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli enzymes. FEBS J. 274, 2240-2252.

Yao, L., Cukier, R. I.*, and Yan, H.* (2007) Catalytic mechanism of guanine deaminase: An ONIOM and molecular dynamics study. J. Phys. Chem. B 111, 4200-4210.

Liu*, A., Yao, L., Li, Y., and Yan, H. (2007) TROSY of side-chain amides in large proteins. J. Magn Reson., in press.

Yao, L., Yan, H.*, and Cukier, R. I.* (2007) A molecular dynamics study of the ligand release path in yeast cytosine deaminase. Biophys. J. 92, 2301-2310. MORE