Xie, Letian
Letian is a first year trainee and is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research mentor is Dr. Catherine Clarke. He received a B.S. degree in 2008 from UCLA.
Mentor: Dr. Catherine Clarke
Coenzyme Q (Q) functions in mitochondrial respiratory electron transport and as a lipid soluble antioxidant. In yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae nine genes, designated COQ1 through COQ9, have been identified as being required for Q biosynthesis. Previous work discovered certain Coq polypeptides assembled into a high molecular weight protein complex that is required for Q biosynthesis. My main project is to characterize Coq8p, a putative protein kinase. Using proteomic approaches, I am trying to identify the phosphorylation substrates of Coq8p, and the effect of phosphorylation on the high molecular weight Coq complex.
