Zhongyue John Yang

Substrate-bound structures of yeast ALA synthase reveal protein dynamics initiating heme biosynthesis

Heme is an essential prosthetic group involved in multiple biological processes in nearly all organisms. Heme biosynthesis is initiated by the pyridoxal 5′-phosphate–dependent enzyme aminolevulinic acid synthase (ALAS). Mutations in ALAS cause multiple hematological diseases. Des...

MutexaGPT: an intuition-to-design translator for physics-based enzyme engineering

Abstract Physical intuition about how enzyme structure and dynamics shape function has guided successful engineering efforts, yet a systematic approach is still lacking for translating these qualitative and abstract ‘thoughts’ into quantitative, actionable principles for enzyme d...