Name： HE Weiqing

Department：Microbial Metabolic Engineering

Tel: (8610)63038137

Email: heweiqing@imb.pumc.edu.cn

Education & Research Experience

2020/09– Now Professor, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences

2011/09– 2020/09 Associate Professor, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences

2009/08 – 2011/09 Visiting Researcher, Georgia State University, USA

2006/08 – 2011/09 Assistant Professor, Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences

2003/09 – 2006/07 Ph.D. in microbial and biochemical pharmacy, Peking Union Medical College

Research Field：

Microbial medicine optimized by synthetic biology

Research Interests：

Dr. He has been engaged in discovery and optimization of microbial medicine. The bioactive microbial secondary metabolites were discovered and optimized by combinatorial biosynthesis, synthetic biology and other biotechnologies. Carrimycin developed by our laboratory won the national first-class new drug certificate in 2019. It has good inhibitory activity against a variety of drug-resistant bacteria, and is mainly used for the treatment of upper respiratory tract infections. We sequenced the whole genome of the carrimycin-producing bacteria, identified the biosynthetic gene clusters of carrimycin, and illustrated its biosynthetic regulation mechanism. The new strains were constructed to produce more carrimycin or its single component. Recent clinical trials have also confirmed that carrimycin is an effective drug for the treatment of patients with SARS-CoV2 infections. Therefore, the pharmacological properties and effect mechanism of carrimycin against drug-resistant bacteria and viruses became our novel interested projects. In addition, we strive to obtain the improved leader compounds through microbial glycosylation or glycodiversification of the microbial secondary metabolites, especially the macrolide antibiotics. The various glycosyl group synthetic gene clusters and matched glycosyltranferase genes elements were collected from different organisms, and establishing the glycosylation modification systems for microbial medicines optimization.

Selected Publications

1. Jianlu Dai, Yiguang Wang, Juanjuan Liu*, Weiqing He*. The regulatory genes involved in spiramycin and bitespiramycin biosynthesis. Microbiological Research, 2020, 240:126532.

2. Zhili Lu ^#, Xiaoting Zhang ^#, Jianlu Dai, Yiguang Wang and Weiqing He*. Engineering of leucine-responsive regulatory protein improves spiramycin and bitespiramycin biosynthesis. Microb Cell Fact, 2019, 18:38

3. Weiqing He, Chunping Yang, Xiaofeng Zhao, Yiguang Wang. Antimicrobial activity of bitespiramycin, a new genetically engineered macrolide. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 2017, 27(19): 4576-4577.

4. Jingjing Zhong, Zhili Lu, Jianlu Dai, Weiqing He*. Identification of two regulatory genes involved in carbomycin biosynthesis in Streptomyces thermotolerans. Arch Microbiol, 2017, 199 (7): 1023-1033.

5. Yufeng Liu^#, Jingjing Zhong^#, Ling Lin, Juanjuan Liu, Yiguang Wang, Weiqing He*, Zhao-Yong Yang*. New C-19-modified geldanamycin derivatives: synthesis, antitumor activities, and physical properties study. J Asian Nat Prod Res, 2016, 18(8):752-764.

6. Zhang XT, Zhang Y, Dai JL, Wang YG, He WQ. Construction of a new isovalerylspiramycin I producing strain by CRISPR-Cas9 system. Chin J Biotech, 2019, 35(3): 472-481.

Academic Appointments

Professional committee member of Enzyme Engineering and Fermentation Engineering of China Medicinal Biotech Association