On March 20, 2023, the list of Hainan University Excellent Graduate Theses was released.
After rigorous screening and selection, the thesis "Study on the Novel C4 Methylsterol Biosynthetic Pathway Mediated by Sterol Methyltransferase in Zooxanthellae Breviolum minutum" by Zhang Xu, a 2022 Marine Biology graduate of SCBE, was on the list.
The thesis discovered a novel sterol synthase capable of co-synthesizing C4α- and C4β-methylsterols and elucidated the catalytic mechanism. It answered the question of the biosynthetic pathways of C4α- and C4β-methylsterols, which has been controversial in the scientific community for a long time. It was supported by the National Key R&D Program (2021YFA0909604, 2021YFE0110100), etc.
During his graduate studies, Zhang Xu published papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Critical Reviews in Biotechnology.