CIMR-Xu Tan

Research Group

Xu Tan

xtan(at)cimrbj.ac.cn

Investigator

xtan(at)cimrbj.ac.cn

Ph.D. in Pharmacology, University of Washington, USA

B.S. in Biology, University of Science and Technology of China

Work Experience

2023至今

Investigator, Chinese Institutes for Medical Research, Beijing, China

2014-2023

Associate Professor(Tenured), School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University, China

2008-2014

Postdoc Fellow, Harvard Medical School, USA

2007-2008

Senior Fellow, Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington, USA

Research Direction

The Tan laboratory works on virus-host interaction and antiviral drug discovery. By applying high-throughput technologies to identify key factors involved in the infection of and immune responses to HIV, Hepatitis B virus, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2, etc., the lab aims to discover new targets of antiviral drugs and vaccines. The lab also performs high-throughput antiviral small molecule compound screening to identify broad-spectrum antiviral agents. The ultimate goal is to improve our capability to treat currently circulated viruses and enhance our preparedness for emerging viral infections.

Major Research Projects

1. Genome-wide overexpression screening for key human genes involved in the infections of Zika virus, Hepatitis B virus, etc.

2. Systematic identification of CD8 T cell epitopes of important viruses.

3. Discovery of novel molecular glue degrader drugs for treating viral infections.

Major Contributions

1. Discovered small molecule compounds with broad antiviral activities (Protein & Cell, 2023; PNAS, 2021)

2. Developed and screened the first genome-wide CRISPR library for bat (PNAS, 2021)

3.Identified an anti-HIV restriction factor PSGL-1 and its degradation mediated by HIV-1 protein Vpu (Nature Microbiology, 2019)

4. Developed one of the first non-viral delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system in vivo and demonstrated its application in treating HBV infection （Cell Research, 2017）

5. Discovered new genetic mutations causing a genetic skin disorder and the underlying mechanism (Nature Genetics, 2016)

6. Discovered the first molecular glue degrader compounds (Nature 2007, 2010)

Representative Publications *：Co-first author; #：Co-corresponding author

Jiang C*, Mei M*, Liu Y, Hou M, Jiao J, Tan Y, Tan X. PSGL-1 is an evolutionarily conserved antiviral restriction factor. mBio, 2023, 3: e0038723. DOI: 10.1128/mbio.00387-23

Mei M*, Impagnatiello MA*, Jiao J, Reiser U, Tontsch-Grunt U, Zhang J, Nicklin P, Yu B, Wang Y, He Y^#, Tan X^#. An orally available monovalent SMAC mimetic compound as a broad-spectrum antiviral. Protein & Cell, 2023, DOI: 10.1093/procel/pwad033

Li S*, Qian N*, Jiang C, Zu W, Liang A, Li M, Elledge SJ, Tan X. Gain-of-function genetic screening identifies antiviral function of TMEM120A via activating STING signaling. Nature Communications, 2022, 13:105. DOl: 10.1038/s41467-021-27670-1

Anderson DE*, Cui J*, Ye Q*, Huang B*, Tan Y, Jiang C, Zu W, Gong J, Liu W, Kim SY, Yan BG, Sigmundsson K, Lim XF, Ye F, Niu P, Irving AT, Zhang H, Tang Y, Zhou X, Wang Y, Tan W, Wang LF^#, Tan X^#. Orthogonal genome-wide screens of bat cells identify MTHFD1 as a target of broad antiviral therapy. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2021, 118: e2104759118. DOl: 10.1073/pnas.2104759118

Zhang H*, Deng S*, Ren L, Zheng P, Hu X, Jin T^#, Tan X^#. Profiling CD8 + T cell epitopes of COVID-19 convalescents reveals reduced cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 variants. Cell Reports, 2021, 36: 109708. DOl: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109708

Liu Y*, Song Y*, Zhang S, Diao M, Huang S, Li S, Tan X. PSGL-1 inhibits HIV-1 infection by restricting actin dynamics and sequestering HIV envelope proteins. Cell Discovery, 2020, 6: 53. DOI: 1038/s41421-020-0184-9

Liu Y*, Fu Y*, Wang Q, Li M, Zhou Z, Dabbagh D, Fu C, Zhang H, Li S, Zhang T, Gong J, Kong X, Zhai W, Su J, Sun J, Zhang Y, Yu XF, Shao Z, Zhou F^#, Wu Y^#, Tan X^#. Proteomic profiling of HIV-1 infection of human CD4+ T cells identifies PSGL-1 as an HIV restriction factor. Nature Microbiology, 2019, 4: 813. DOl: 10.1038/s41564-019-0372-2

Li P*, Wei Y*, Mei M*, Tang L*, Sun L, Huang W, Zhou J, Zou C, Zhang S, Qin CF, Jiang T, Dai J, Tan X^#, Zhang QC^#. Integrative Analysis of Zika Virus Genome RNA Structure Reveals Critical Determinants of Viral Infectivity. Cell Host &Microbe, 2018, 24: 875. DOl: 10.1016/j.chom.2018.10.011

Jiang C*, Mei M*, Li B*, Zhu X*, Zu W, Tian Y, Wang Q, Guo Y, Dong Y^#, Tan X^#.A non-viral CRISPR/Cas9 delivery system for therapeutically targeting HBV DNA and PCSK9 in vivo. Cell Research, 2017, 27: 440. DOl: 10.1038/cr.2017.16

Lin Z*, Li S*, Feng C*, Yang S, Wang H, Ma D, Zhang J, Gou M, Bu D, Zhang T, Kong X, Wang X, Sarig O, Ren Y, Dai L, Liu H, Zhang J, Li F, Hu Y, Padalon-Brauch G, Vodo D, Zhou F, Chen T, Deng H, Sprecher E, Yang Y^#, Tan X^#. Stabilizing mutations of KLHL24 ubiquitin ligase cause loss of keratin 14 and human skin fragility. Nature Genetics, 2016, 48: 1508. DOl: 10.1038/ng.3701