Biography
Research Interests
Membrane lipids, at its most fundamental level in natural sciences, are building blocks of cell membranes, the storage of energy and essential metabolites. My research team studies the chemical and physical basis of lipid-transport membrane proteins through investigating their structure-function relationship and their role in maintaining cellular physiology and cell survival. The knowledge gap on their molecular mechanism remains significantly unstudied, and this is critical to understand the molecular and atomic basis underlying medical conditions, such as cardiovascular and neurological disorders, cancer, infectious diseases, etc. Our research exploits the unprecedented technical advancement in protein biochemistry/biophysics, structural biology, bioinformatics, protein-engineering/synthetic biology, and computational biology to study membrane proteins. We employ a hybrid approach, i.e., integrative structural biology, to study the function and molecular mechanism of membrane proteins by investigating their structural-functional consequences and by dissecting the molecular details of the ligand-protein or protein-protein interactions.
Selected Publications
- Sai, K.V. and Lee, J.-Y. (2024). Crossing the membrane – what does it take to flip a phospholipid? Structural and biochemical advances on P4-ATPase flippases. J. Biol. Chem. (JBC), 300(10): 107738. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107738.
- Wazir, S., Farhat, D., Srinivasan, M. and Lee, J.-Y. (2023) Protocol for ABCG5/G8 crystallization in a lipidic Bicelle environment for X-ray crystallography. Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). 198: e65828. DOI: 10.3791/65828.
- Rezaei, F., Farhat, D., Gursu, G., Samnani, S. and Lee, J.-Y. (2023) Snapshots of ABCG1 and ABCG5/G8: A Sterol’s Journey to Cross the Cellular Membranes. Int. J. Mol. Sci. (IJMS), 24(1): 484. DOI: 10.3390/ijms24010484.
- Farhat, D., Rezaei, F. and Lee, J.-Y. (2022) Data on structural analysis of cholesterol binding and sterol selectivity by ABCG5/G8. Data in Brief. 45: 108754. DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2022.108754
- Farhat, D., Ristovski, M., Rezaei, F., Yang, Y., Stancescu, A., Dzimkova, L., Samnani, S., Couture, J.-F. and Lee, J.-Y. (2022) Structural analysis of cholesterol binding and sterol selectivity by ABCG5/G8. Journal of Molecular Biology. 434(20): 167795. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2022.167795. (bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2022.05.18.492512).
- Dizaj, S.M., Salatin, S., Khezri, K., Lee, J.-Y. and Lotfipour, F. (2022) Targeting multidrug resistance with antimicrobial peptide-decorated nanoparticles and polymers. Front. Microbiol., 13: 831655. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.831655.
- Ristovski, M., Farhat, D., Bancud, S.E.M. and Lee, J.-Y. Lipid transporters beam signals from cell membranes. Membranes, 11(8): 562 (2021). DOI: 10.3390/membranes11080562.
- Xavier, B.M., Zein, A.A., Venes, A., Wang, J. and Lee, J.-Y. Transmembrane polar relay drives the allosteric regulation for ABCG5/G8 sterol transporter. Int. J. Mol. Sci. (IJMS), 21(22): 8747, DOI: 10.3390/ijms21228747. Epub 2020 November 19th, (bioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2020.10.06.327825) (2020).
- Khunweeraphong, N., Mitchell‐White, J., Szöllősi, D., Hussein, T., Kuchler, K., Kerr, I.D., Stockner, T. and Lee, J.-Y. Picky ABCG5/G8 and promiscuous ABCG2 ‐ a tale of fatty diets and drug toxicity. FEBS Lett, 594(23): 4035-4058, DOI: 10.1002/1873-3468.13938. Epub 2020 September 26th. (2020).
- Zein, A.A., Kaur, R., Hussein, T.O.K., Graf, G. and Lee, J.-Y. ABCG5/G8: A Structural View to Pathophysiology of the Hepatobiliary Cholesterol Secretion. Biochem. Soc. Trans. (London), 47(5): 1259-1268, DOI: 10.1042/BST20190130. Epub 2019 October 18th (2019).
- Xavier, B.M., Jennings, W.J., Zein, A.A., Wang, J. and Lee, J.-Y. Structural snapshot of the cholesterol-transport ATP-binding cassette proteins. Biochemistry and Cell Biology, 97(3): 224-233, DOI: 10.1139/bcb-2018-0151. Epub 2018 July 30th (2019).
- Lee, J.-Y. and Rosenbaum, D.M. Transporters Revealed. Cell 168(6): 951-953, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.02.033 (2017).
- Lee, J.-Y., Kinch, L.N., Borek, D.M., Wang, J., Wang J., Urbatsch, I.L., Xie, X.-S., Grishin, N.V., Cohen, J.C., Otwinowski, Z., Hobbs, H.H. and Rosenbaum, D.M. Crystal Structure of the Human Sterol Transporter ABCG5/ABCG8. Nature 533(7604): 561-564, DOI: 10.1038/nature17666 (2016).