Prof. Dong Mengqiu from NIBS visited WIPM

On March 21st, Prof. Dong Mengqiu from National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing(NIBS), was invited by Prof. Tang Chun to visit Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics(WIPM, CAS) and gave a speech entitled “Probing Protein-Protein Interactions with Chemical Crosslinking Mass Spectrometr”.

At the beginning of the speech, Prof. Dong talked about the disadvantages of mass spectrometry to analyze the interaction between the proteins; therefore, she introduced the chemical cross-linking of proteins coupled with mass spectrometry analysis (CXMS) in detail. CXMS is a new technology which is able to provide the information of protein folding and protein-protein interactions. It can help determine the structure of proteins and interfaces between the subunits of protein complexes. The advantage of this technology is that it neither requires protein crystals nor a large number of highly purified protein. In addition to the low requirement of the amount and purity of protein samples, CXMS technology experimental period is also short, so it could be widely used. It is worth to mention that this technology is also capable of capturing the dynamic structure of proteins, mutually corroborating with the solution NMR. In this area, Prof Dong’s Groups are dedicating to the application and development of mass spectrometry and proteomics technology, studying protein-protein interactions using identifying crosslinking peptides.

The excellent speech given by Prof. Dong received an intense response to the presence of students and research staff of WIPM. After the report, Prof. Dong had an extensive and profound discussion with all the audience. Prof. Tang Huiru and Prof. Tang Chun in WIPM put forward many ideas, combining with the characteristics of NMR.

Prof. Dong graduated from Yale University in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. She worked at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the U.S. and the Scripps Research Institute, engaging her postdoctoral research. Then she began her research on biology and mass spectrometry in NIBS, in 2007. She published a number of influential research papers in magazines like Science, Nature and Cell.