Accelerate, Brake, and Reverse: Watch a Molecular Machine Shift Gears
Event Details
- Type
- Monday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Shixin Liu, Ph.D., associate professor and head, Laboratory of Nanoscale Biophysics and Biochemistry, The Rockefeller University
- Speaker bio(s)
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Genome replication and gene transcription are carried out by remarkable macromolecular machines, which perform these fundamental functions with extraordinary accuracy. However, the journey of these machines on the DNA tracks is far from a smooth ride: they frequently encounter complex nucleic-acid structures, chromatin-binding proteins, and other translocating motors within a crowded genome. In this talk, Dr. Liu will present his lab's recent progress in understanding how the transcription elongation complex from both bacterial and eukaryotic systems handles these challenges. For the bacterial system, they used cryo-electron microscopy to capture the structural rearrangements of the E. coli RNA polymerase (RNAP) upon collision into a stationary roadblock or head-on into another transcribing RNAP. For the eukaryotic system, they developed a single-molecule platform to record the dynamic behavior of the mammalian RNAP II and its associated elongation factors on DNA and chromatin. Their findings reveal that these microscopic machines harbor an exquisite degree of tunability in conformational space and kinetic range, enabling them to traverse distinct physical landscapes unique to their operation cycle despite sharing a highly conserved active center.
Shixin Liu earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Science and Technology of China, Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University, and did postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Rockefeller’s faculty as an assistant professor in 2016 and became an associate professor in 2022. He has been the recipient of an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science.
MLS lectures are only open to the RU community and will be taking place in Carson Family Auditorium and virtually via Zoom. Virtual participants are required to log in with their RU Zoom account and use their RU email address and password for authentication. We recommend signing out of VPN prior to logging in to the lecture. Please do not share the link or post on social media.
- Open to
- Campus Only