Caoxiongwen

2005.9 - 2009.6    Huazhong University of Science and Technology， BS

2009.9 - 2016.1    Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Ph.D 

2023.1 - now        Principal investigator, The School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University

2019.2 - 2022.12  Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemical Biology Institute, Yale University             

2015.12 - 2019.1  Postdoctoral Fellow,Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology

Recent advances in genomic and proteomic technologies have revealed that mammalian genomes may harbor thousands of unannotated small open reading frames (smORFs). It is remain unclear whether these smORF-encoded proteins (SEPs or alt-proteins) are exist and functional broadly. Our lab are intrested in developing chemoproteomics pipelines to profiling these SEPs and alt-proteins, and functional study of these microproteins. 

Recent advances in genomic and proteomic technologies have revealed that mammalian genomes may harbor thousands of unannotated small open reading frames (smORFs). It is remain unclear whether these smORF-encoded proteins (SEPs or alt-proteins) are exist and functional broadly. Our lab is currently working on:

1) Chemoproteomic profiling of mitochondrial unannotated SEPs and alt-proteins, with a focus on functional study of mitophagy related SEPs and alt-proteins;

2) Proteomic profiling of unannotated SEPs and alt-proteins expressed in mouse testis, and functional study of some of these SEPs and alt-proteins in mouse testis;

3) Proteomic profiling of unannotated SEPs and alt-proteins expressed in pancreatic cancer, and functional study of these SEPs and alt-proteins in pancreatic cancer development;

4) Chemoproteomic profiling of secreted unannotated SEPs and alt-proteins expressed in mouse sertoli cells or pancreatic cancer cells, and functional study of these SEPs and alt-proteins.

Publications(# co-first author)

1. Xiongwen Cao#, Yanran Chen#, Alexandra Khitun, Sarah A. Slavoff (2023).

BONCAT-based Profiling of Nascent Small and Alternative Open Reading Frame-encoded Proteins. Bio-protocol (2023) 13(01):e4585.

2. Xiongwen Cao, Alexandra Khitun, Cecelia M. Harold, Carson J. Bryant, Shu-Jian Zheng, Susan J. Baserga, Sarah A. Slavoff (2022). Nascent alt-protein chemoproteomics reveals a pre-60S assembly checkpoint inhibitor. Nature Chemical Biology (2022) 18, 643-651.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-022-01003-9

3. Zhenkun Na, Xiaoyun Dai, Shu-Jian Zheng, Carson J. Bryant, Ken H. Loh, Haomiao Su, Yang Luo, Amber F. Buhagiar, Xiongwen Cao, Susan J. Baserga, Sidi Chen, Sarah A. Slavoff (2022). Mapping subcellular localizations of unannotated microproteins and alternative proteins with MicroID. Molecular cell 82, 2900-2911 e2907.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1097276522006530

4. Xiongwen Cao#, Alexandra Khitun#, Yang Luo, Zhenkun Na, Thitima Phoodokmai, Khomkrit Sappakhaw, Elizabeth Olatunji, Chayasith Uttamapinant and Sarah A. Slavoff (2021). Alt-RPL36 downregulates the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling pathway by interacting with TMEM24. Nature Communications (2021), 12(508). (Featured article, “From molecules and cells to organisms,” www.nature.com/collections/bbcaeejggj)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20841-6

5. Xiongwen Cao#, Alexandra Khitun#, Zhenkun Na, Daniel G. Dumitrescu, Marcelina Kubica, Elizabeth Olatunji and Sarah A. Slavoff (2020). Comparative Proteomic Profiling of Unannotated Microproteins and Alternative Proteins in Human Cell Lines. J Proteome Res (2020) 19, 3418-3426. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.0c00254

6. Xiongwen Cao and Sarah A. Slavoff (2020). Non-AUG start codons: Expanding and regulating the small and alternative ORFeome. Exp Cell Res (2020) 391, 111976.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014482720301877

7. Xiongwen Cao#, Yanran Chen#, Bin Wu#, Xiaoyun Wang, Hongjuan Xue, Lu Yu, Jie Li, Yiqin Wang, Wei Wang, Qing Xu, Hailei Mao, Chao Peng, Gang Han and Charlie Degui Chen (2020). Histone H4K20 Demethylation by Two hHR23 Proteins. Cell Reports (2020) 30: 4152-4164 (Co-correspondence author).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124720302990?via%3Dihub

8. Hailei Mao, Gang Han, Longyong Xu, Duming Zhu, Hanqing Lin, Xiongwen Cao, Yi Yu and Charlie Degui Chen (2015). Cis-existence of H3K27me3 and H3K36me2 in mouse embryonic stem cells revealed by specific ions of isobaric modification chromatogram. Stem Cell Research & Therapy (2015) 6:132.

9. Hong-Tao Li, Ting Gong, Zhen Zhou, Yu-Ting Liu, Xiongwen Cao, Yongning He, Charlie Degui Chen and Jin-Qiu Zhou (2015). Yeast Hmt1 catalyses asymmetric dimethylation of histone H3 arginine 2 in vitro. Biochem. J. (2015) 467, 507–515.

10. Chunyu Jin, Jing Li, Christopher D. Green, Xiaoming Yu, Xia Tang, Dali Han, Bo Xian, Dan Wang, Xinxin Huang, Xiongwen Cao, Zheng Yan, Lei Hou, Jiancheng Liu, Nicholas Shukeir, Philipp Khaitovich, Charlie D. Chen, Hong Zhang, Thomas Jenuwein, and Jing-Dong J. Han (2011). Histone Demethylase UTX-1 Regulates C. elegans Life Span by Targeting the Insulin/IGF-1 Signaling Pathway. Cell Metabolism (2011) 14, 161–172.