On October 23, 2017, with the invitation of Prof. Wu, Prof. Zucai Suo visited our school and gave a wonderful lecture titled “New Insights about DNA Synthesis and Lesion Bypass Revealed by Time-Dependent X-ray Crystallography and Enzyme Kinetics”.

Firstly, Prof. Suo introduced the research fields in his group, included “develop and apply advanced enzymology” “DNA replication, DNA damage repair and DNA lesion bypass” “CRISPR Cas9, Cpf1, C2c2” and “human diseases”. Then he talked about the “human right-hand structure” and one of the important chemical reactions-Phosphodiester Bond Formation. He raised three questions to this research: SN1, SN2, or something in-between? How many Mg²⁺ ions? Does a DNA lesion affect the chemical reaction? All the questions were about the reaction mechanism. Also, he introduced the methods they used to get the crystal structures and detected by X-ray crystallography based on time. And then, Prof. Suo talked about their work in two topics, which are “Watching a DNA Polymerase Faithfully and Unfaithfully Build a DNA Lesion for the First Time” and “Structural Insights into the Post-Chemistry Steps of Nucleotide Incorporation Catalyzed by Human DNA Polymerase Beta”. Finally, Prof. Suo showed the mechanism from years of kinetic, dynamics, structure and single-molecular studies.（Written by Zhang Lin-xing, Photoed by Zhang Lin-Xing）

Brief introduction of speaker:

Zucai Suo studied chemistry at Fudan University, Shanghai, and gained his B.S. degree in 1986 and M.S. degree in 1989. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry by Pennsylvania State University in 1997. He was Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University Medical School from 1998 to 2000. And he became professor in Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Ohio State University, from 2012 till now.