Minjia Tan
By integrating mass spectrometry, biochemistry and bioinformatics approaches, my laboratory is focused on the development of proteomics technologies to system-wide dissect the roles of proteins and post-translational modifications (PTMs) in diseases, particular in cancer and metabolic disorders, and to explore the new therapeutic opportunities. Using these technologies, we conducted integrative proteomic analysis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients revealed three molecular subtypes with distinct biological and clinical outcomes, and identified potential new prognostic biomarkers and drug targets. Our proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis revealed three molecular subtypes of KRAS mutant cancer and identified combination of DOT1L and SHP2 inhibitors as an effective treatment for the most aggressive subset. Our comprehensive quantitive profiling of histone modifications revealed a key of histone H3K27ac gain in lysine methyltransferase EZH2 inhibitor resistance and demonstrated targeting histone PTM crosstalk as an efficient therapeutic strategy for EZH2-aberrant solid tumors. Our integrated phosphoproteome, ubiquitinome, interactome and transcriptome analysis disclosed a novel mechanism of DRAK2 for SRSF6-associated RNA alternative splicing regulation and a new role of USP14 via FASN stabilization in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) development. The studies expanded the understanding of protein modification substrates and their dynamic regulatory mechanism in cellular function and presented new potential epigenetic therapeutic strategy by targeting PTMs.
Dr. Tan co-authored more than 170 refereed publications (>20,000 citations, H-index 56) including senior author papers in Cell (2018, 2020), Cell Metabolism (2021, 2026), Molecular Cell (2021, 2022, 2026), Nature Chemistry (2023), Nature Cancer (2024), Science Translational Medicine (2024), ect.
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