Di Zhang lab

Laboratory of Metabolic Signaling and Cellular Adaptation

Decoding how metabolic information shapes cellular adaptation and disease.

METABOLIC SENSING | METABOLIC SIGNALING | CELLULAR ADAPTATION

Lab Introduction

Our laboratory investigates how metabolic states are sensed, encoded, and transmitted into regulatory signals to shape cellular function and adaptation.

Our research builds on the discovery that metabolites can directly regulate cellular processes through previously unrecognized protein modifications. During his postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago with Professor Yingming Zhao, Dr. Di Zhang discovered that metabolites such as lactate and ketone bodies can drive novel protein modifications, including lysine lactylation. This work established a direct molecular connection between metabolic states and gene regulation and helped reveal metabolism as an active layer of cellular signaling. His research has received more than 10,000 citations.

Building on this foundation, we now seek to define the broader principles of metabolic sensing, signal transmission, and cellular adaptation. We study how metabolites and metabolic pathways communicate with protein, signaling, transcriptional, and regulatory networks, and how these interactions are organized across cellular compartments and over time. We further investigate how cancer cells rewire these regulatory systems to adapt to metabolic and environmental stresses, drive tumor progression and metastasis, and develop therapeutic vulnerabilities.

Our research is organized around three interconnected directions:

1. Metabolic Sensing and Signaling in Cellular Adaptation

How cells sense metabolic changes and convert them into regulatory signals that control cellular function and adaptation.

2. Metabolism-Driven Regulation of Cellular Function and Signaling Networks

How metabolites and metabolic pathways reshape cellular signaling, transcriptional, and regulatory networks in a spatially and temporally coordinated manner.

3. Metabolic Rewiring and Adaptive Plasticity in Cancer

How cancer cells reprogram metabolic and regulatory networks to adapt to environmental and therapeutic stresses, promote tumor progression and metastasis, and create actionable metabolic vulnerabilities.

By connecting metabolism, signaling, and cellular adaptation, we aim to uncover fundamental principles of how metabolic information controls cell behavior and to translate these insights into new strategies for understanding and targeting disease.

Metabolism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_pathway; From wiki