Jiaqi Zhao
Co-author; chemical biologist who helped build a chemical probe revealing a glycolytic enzyme's secret second job as a methionine sensor for mTORC1.
Chemical biology researcher · Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen
To find the cell's methionine sensor directly, Zhao and colleagues built a 'Trojan horse' chemical probe: a photoaffinity version of methionine that tags whatever protein grabs onto it when hit with light. That fishing expedition landed on PKM2 — an enzyme best known for its day job in glucose metabolism — which the team showed binds methionine through a newly identified pocket and relays that signal through GATOR2 to control mTORC1.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | M | "Trojan" Methionine Probe Reveals PKM2 as a Methionine-Sensing Protein in the mTORC1 Pathway SANG2026 Co-author on a chemical-biology study using a photoaffinity methionine probe to identify PKM2 as a direct methionine-sensing protein that signals through the GATOR2 complex to regulate mTORC1. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Jiaqi Zhao.
- Jie Wang Corresponding author of a 2026 JACS paper identifying PKM2 as a direct methionine-sensing protein that signals into mTORC1 via GATOR2.