Prof.Wang Jianbin’s Team Published in Advanced Science

     Recently, Prof.Wang Jianbin’s team from School of Basic Medicine of NCU published a paper entitled SUCLG2 Regulates Mitochondrial Dysfunction through Succinylation in Lung Adenocarcinoma in the comprehensive journal Advanced Science. The paper is their latest achievement after their important papers were published in top international journals such as Cell Research, Autophagy etc. It is also the fifth high-level research paper with its IF>10 published by the School of Basic Medicine this year.

Both the incidence and mortality rates of lung cancer rank the top among malignant tumors in China. In 2020, there were 815,000 new cases of lung cancer in China, and 714,700 deaths in the same period, exerting serious impact on people’s health and social economy. Therefore, finding new specific targets to improve treatment pertinence and reduce side effects has become an urgent problem to be solved in the treatment of lung cancer. Mitochondrial dysfunction and abnormal energy metabolism are the major features of tumor. However, the mechanisms underlying mitochondrial dysfunction during tumor progression are still far from clear. Mitochondrial succinylation serves as a critical and extensive regulatory mechanism for mitochondrial proteins. Professor Wang’s paper demonstrates that the expression level of succinyl-coenzyme A (CoA) synthetase GDP-forming SUCLG2 can affect the overall succinylation of lung adenocarcinoma(LUAD)cells. Inhibiting the expression level of SUCLG2 can weaken the mitochondrial function through succinylation, thereby restraining tumor development. Meanwhile, SUCLG2 itself is also succinylated, and this succinylation enhances its protein stability, lowering the succinylation level of Mitochondrial protein and promoting Mitochondrial dysfunction. The findings reveal a new role for SUCLG2 in mitochondrial dysfunction and clarify the mechanism of the succinylation-mediated protein homeostasis of SUCLG2 in LUAD, thus providing a theoretical basis for developing anti-cancer drugs targeting SUCLG2.

The Mechanism of SUCLG2’s Role in Mitochondrial dysfunction

This research is supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China as a key project. Hu Qifan, a doctoral student of the school, is the first author, and Prof.Wang Jianbin is the corresponding author. Prof.Wang has long been engaged in the research of tumor metabolism and carried out research at the State University of New York and Cornell University. Since 2011, he has been employed by the School of Basic Medicine of NCU and has published a series of academic papers in top international journals such as Cancer cell (cover article), becoming one of the most influential scholars in the field of tumor metabolism. Prof.Wang Jianbin is a national candidate of the New Century Ten Million Talents Project and has won the Contribution Award of Overseas Chinese Innovative Talents, and the second prize of the Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Award. He has also led and accomplished key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other national scientific research projects.

Prof.Wang Discusses the Topic with His Students

The School of Basic Medicine has always attached great importance to continuously cultivate high-quality scientific research achievements, consciously fulfilling the mission of high-level technological self-reliance and self-improvement. In response to major strategic, cutting-edge and urgent issues in the field of medical healthcare, the School of Basic Medicine focuses on characteristic disciplines and key directions such as regenerative medicine and reproductive biology, pathology and pathophysiology, systematically promoting the construction of scientific research. In the past three years, the school has won 5 natural science awards at the provincial level and published nearly 300 SCI indexed papers. This year, it has published 5 important research papers as the first or corresponding author in high-level journals with an IF>10, such as Advanced Science, Science Advances, Redox Biology, Theranostics, and it has been approved to establish the postdoctoral program of basic medicine. All these achievements demonstrate the continued growth made in the field of scientific research of the school and are of great significance to enhance the influence of the basic medical disciplines of NCU.

Editor: Cheng Huiping

Executive Editor: Tu Jinfeng