SUN Zhoutong----Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology Chinese Academy of Sciences

SUN Zhoutong, Ph.D.

Principle Investigator, TIB, Tianjin, China

Tel: 86-22-84861981

E-mail: sunzht@tib.cas.cn

Education

2005-2011 Ph.D. Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

2003-2005 B.S. Department of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Henan, China

2000-2003 College of Biology Engineering, Henan University of Animal Husbandry and Economy, Henan, China

Professional Experience

2016-now Principle Investigator, Full Professor, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin, China

2013-2016 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Manfred T. Reetz group, Department of Chemistry, Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research and Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

2012-2013 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Susanna Su Jan Leong group, Division of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

2012 Research associate/project manager, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shanghai Research and Development Center of Industrial Biotechnology, Shanghai, China

Research Interests

The research in our group is mainly focused on discovery, design and engineering of biocatalyst, cascade reaction design and pathway engineering, our research interests include:

a) genome mining of new types of biocatalyst by bioinformatics analysis;

b) protein engineering and directed evolution of important industrial enzymes to improve or achieve new functions;

c) rational design and in silico directed evolution of new biocatalysts;

d) methodology development in directed evolution.

Selected Publications

27. Qu G^#, Liu B^#, Zhang K, Jiang Y, Zhai C, Guo J, Wang R, Miao Y, Sun Z*. Computer-assisted engineering of the catalytic activity of a carboxylic acid reductase. J. Biotechnol., 2019, doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiotec.2019.09.006.

26. Qu G^#, Li A^#, Acevedo-Rocha CG^#, Sun Z*, and Reetz MT*. The Crucial Role of Methodology Development in Directed Evolution of Selective Enzymes. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201901491.

25. Li A^#, Qu G^#, Sun Z*, and Reetz MT*. Statistical Analysis of the Benefits of Focused Saturation Mutagenesis in Directed Evolution Based on Reduced Amino Acid Alphabets. ACS Catal., 2019, 9, 7769-7778.

24. Liu B^#, Qu G^#, Li J, Fan W, Ma JA, Xu Y, Nie Y*, and Sun Z*. Conformational Dynamics-Guided Loop Engineering of an Alcohol Dehydrogenase: Capture, Turnover and Enantioselective Transformation of Difficult-to-Reduce Ketones. Adv. Synth. Catal., 2019, 361, 3182-3190.

23. Qu G^#, Liu B^#, Jiang Y, Nie Y, Yu H, and Sun Z*. Laboratory evolution of an alcohol dehydrogenase towards enantioselective reduction of difficult-to-reduce ketones. Bioresour. Bioprocess. 2019, 6(1):18.

22. Sun Z*, Liu Q, Qu G, Feng Y*, Reetz MT*. The Utility of B-Factors in Protein Science: Interpreting Rigidity, Flexibility and Internal Motion and Engineering Thermostability. Chem. Rev., 2019, 119, 1626-1665.

21. Qu G^#, Fu M^#, Zhao L, Liu B, Liu P, Fan W, Ma JA, Sun Z*. Computational Insights into the Catalytic Mechanism of Bacterial Carboxylic Acid Reductase. J. Chem. Inf. Model., 2019, 59,832-841.

20. Dai Z^#, Liu Y^#, Sun Z^#, Wang D, Qu G, Ma X, Fan F, Zhang L, Li S, Zhang X*. Identification of a novel cytochrome P450 enzyme that catalyzes the C-2α hydroxylation of pentacyclic triterpenoids and its application in yeast cell factories. Metab. Eng., 2019, 51, 70-78.

19. Sun Z, Reetz MT*. CHAPTER 12 Controlling the Regio- and Stereoselectivity of Cytochrome P450 Monooxygenases by Protein Engineering. In Dioxygen-dependent Heme Enzymes, The Royal Society of Chemistry: 2019; pp 274-291.

18. Li A, Sun Z, Reetz MT*. Solid-Phase Gene Synthesis for Mutant Library Construction: The Future of Directed Evolution? ChemBioChem, 2018, 19 (19), 2023-2032.

17. Qu G, Guo J, Yang D, Sun Z*. Biocatalysis of carboxylic acid reductases: Phylogenesis, Catalytic Mechanism and Potential Applications. Green Chem., 2018, 20(4), 777-792.

16. Qu G, Lonsdale R, Yao P, Li G, Liu B, Reetz MT*, Sun Z*. Methodology Development in Directed Evolution: Exploring Options When Applying Triple Code Saturation Mutagenesis. ChemBioChem, 2018, 19, 239-246.

15. Sun Z^#, Wu L^#, Bocola M, Chan H.C. S, Lonsdale R, Kong X.-D, Yuan S*, Zhou J*, Reetz MT*. Structural and Computational Insight into the Catalytic Mechanism of Limonene Epoxide Hydrolase Mutants in Stereoselective Transformations. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, 140 (1), 310-318.

14. Li A, Acevedo-Rocha CG, Sun Z, Cox T, Xu J, Reetz MT*. Beating Bias in Directed Evolution of Proteins: Combining High-Fidelity On-Chip Solid-Phase Gene Synthesis with Efficient Gene Assembly for Combinatorial Library Construction. ChemBioChem, 2018, 19(3), 221-228.

13. Acevedo-Rocha CG*, Sun Z*, Reetz MT*. Clarifying the Difference between Iterative Saturation Mutagenesis as a Rational Guide in Directed Evolution and OmniChange as a Gene Mutagenesis Technique. ChemBioChem, 2018, 19 (24), 2542-2544.

12. Yang J^#, Zhu Y^#, Qu G, Zeng Y, Tian C, Dong C, Men Y, Dai L, Sun Z*, Sun Y*, Ma Y. Biosynthesis of dendroketose from different carbon sources using in vitro and in vivo metabolic engineering strategies. Biotechnol. Biofuels, 2018, 11, 290.

11. Sun Z^#, Salas PT^#, Siirola E^#, Lonsdale R^#, Reetz MT*. Exploring productive sequence space in directed evolution using binary patterning versus conventional mutagenesis strategies. Bioresour. Bioprocess, 2016, 3:44, 1-8.

10．Li A, Ilie A, Sun Z, Lonsdale R, Xu JH，Reetz MT*. Whole-Cell-Catalyzed Multiple Regio- and Stereoselective Functionalizations in Cascade Reactions Enabled by Directed Evolution. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2016, 55, 12026 -12029.

9. Sun Z^#, Li G^#, Ilie A^#, Reetz MT*. Exploring the substrate scope of mutants derived from the robust alcohol dehydrogenase TbSADH. Tetrahedron Letters, 2016, 57, 3648-3651.

8. Sun Z, Lonsdale R, Li G, Reetz MT*. Comparing Different Strategies in Directed Evolution of Enzyme Stereoselectivity: Single- versus Double-Code Saturation Mutagenesis. ChemBioChem, 2016, 17, 1865-1872.

7. Li G^#, Zhang H^#, Sun Z, Liu X*, Reetz MT*. Multiparameter Optimization in Directed Evolution: Engineering Thermostability, Enantioselectivity and Activity of an Epoxide Hydrolase. ACS. Catal., 2016, 6, 3679–3687.

6. Sun Z, Wikmark Y, B？ckvall J-E*, Reetz MT*. New Concepts for Increasing the Efficiency in Directed Evolution of Stereoselective Enzymes. Chem. Eur. J., 2016, 22, 5046-5054.

5. Sun Z, Lonsdale R, Ilie A, Li G, Zhou J, Reetz MT*. Catalytic Asymmetric Reduction of Difficult-to-Reduce Ketones: Triple Code Saturation Mutagenesis of an Alcohol Dehydrogenase. ACS. Catal., 2016, 6, 1598-1605.

4. Sun Z, Lonsdale R, Wu L, Li G, Li A, Wang J, Zhou J*, Reetz MT*. Structure-Guided Triple-Code Saturation Mutagenesis: Efficient Tuning of the Stereoselectivity of an Epoxide Hydrolase. ACS. Catal., 2016, 6, 1590-1597.

3. Sun Z, Ilie A, Reetz MT*. Towards the Production of Universal Blood by Structure-guided Directed Evolution of Glycoside Hydrolases. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2015, 54, 9158-9160.

2. Sun Z, Lonsdale R, Kong XD, Xu JH, Zhou J*, Reetz MT*. Reshaping an Enzyme Binding Pocket for Enhanced and Inverted Stereoselectivity: Use of Smallest Amino Acid Alphabets in Directed Evolution. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2015, 54, 12410-12415.

1. Sun Z, Ning Y, Liu L, Liu Y, Sun B, Jiang W, Yang C, Yang S*. Metabolic engineering of the L-phenylalanine pathway in Escherichia coli for the production of S- or R-mandelic acid. Microb. Cell Fact., 2011, 10:71. “highly accessed”