Self-introduction

Ling Wang obtained her Ph.D. degree from Fudan University where she got training on biochemistry, molecular and structural biology in 2015. Then she pursued her postdoctoral training in single-molecule biophysics at The Rockefeller University from 2016 to 2022. Dr. Wang joined the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) as an assistant professor from Nov, 2022. Her lab mainly utilizes the single-molecule techniques such as single-molecule fluorescence, optical tweezers and smFRET to study the dynamic regulation of molecular machineries involved in transcription, replication and DNA repair. 

Research Interests

Life is carried out by a series of tiny molecular machineries. The central dogma of biology contains three basic processes: DNA replication, DNA transcription and protein translation. During each step, the enzyme that carry out the function must be strictly regulated to ensure proper cell growth. How these machineries can be assembled and regulated spatiotemporally is a key question for all the biological processes, as well as how their dysfunction contribute to disease. We will utilize the unique advantage of single-molecule techniques—real-time observation and simultaneous tracking of multiple components—to reveal the dynamic regulation of biological processes in response to different signals. Currently, we are interested in how the RNA polymerase can access and function on DNA substrate containing lesions, modifications or blocking proteins.

Selected Publication

1. Ling Wang#, John W. Watters, Xiangwu Ju, Shixin Liu#. Head-on and co-directional RNA polymerase collisions orchestrate bidirectional transcription termination. Biorxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.10.23.513370 (2022).

2. Ling Wang*, Zachary Lee Johnson*, Michael R. Wasserman*, Jesper Levring*, Jue Chen#, Shixin Liu#. Characterization of the kinetic cycle of an ABC transporter by single-molecule and cryo-EM analyses. eLife 9:e56451. (2020) (* equal contribution)

3. Ling Wang, Charlie Y. Mo, Michael R. Wasserman, Jakob T. Rostøl, Luciano A. Marraffini, and Shixin Liu. Dynamics of Cas10 Govern Discrimination between Self and Non-self in Type III CRISPR-Cas Immunity. Molecular Cell 73(2): 278-290. (2019)

4. Xue Guo*, Ling Wang*, Jie Li, Zhanyu Ding, Jianxiong Xiao, Xiaotong Yin, Shuang He, Pan Shi, Liping Dong, Guohong Li, Changlin Tian, Jiawei Wang, Yao Cong, Yanhui Xu. Structural insight into autoinhibition and histone H3-induced activation of DNMT3A.  Nature 517: 640-644 (2015) (* equal contribution)

5. Rui Gong, Li Li, Yi Liu, Ping Wang, Huirong Yang, Ling Wang, Jingdong Cheng, Kun-Liang Guan, Yanhui Xu. Crystal structure of the Gtr1p-Gtr2p complex reveals new insights into the amino acid-induced TORC1 activation. Genes & Development 25: 1668-1673 (2011)

(* co-first author, # corresponding author)