Post-Doctoral Pennsylvania State University 2011; Ph.D. University of Minnesota – Twin Cities 2005; B.S. Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea 1997

Biochemistry Sensors and Imaging Spectroscopy/Dynamics Drug Design/Synthesis

Cellular Biochemistry of Metabolic Multienzyme Complexes in Living Cells The broad objective of my laboratory is to contribute to our understanding of how sequential metabolic enzymes are organized in living cells and how such metabolic organizations are spatially and/or temporarily regulated in response to cellular signals relevant to human diseases; including but not limited to cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Since the concept of the “metabolon” was conceived in 1970s, the discovery of the “purinosome”, a reversible metabolic macromolecular complex in human cells [S.An et al. Science (2008) 320, 103], stands as the first examples of transient metabolons in live cells and thus sets the stage for an extraordinary opportunity to explore the spatial and temporal advantages to the cell in assembling and disassembling this cluster of proteins. Indeed, my laboratory is highly motivated to further explore the purinosome and other cellular metabolons as the heart of human disease mechanisms. Collectively, the research projects in my laboratory have potentials to invoke a paradigm shift in our thinking about the operation of cellular biosynthetic pathways, and outcomes will be beneficial for human health.

Songon An and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Trans-editing of Cys-tRNAPro by Haemophilus influenzae YbaK protein” Journal of Biological Chemistry – Accelerated Publication (2004) 279, 42359-42362

Songon An and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Cys-tRNAPro Editing by Haemophilus influenzae YbaK via a NovelSynthetase-YbaK-tRNA Ternary Complex” Journal of Biological Chemistry (2005) 280, 34465-34472

Songon An, George Barany and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Evolution of Acceptor Stem tRNA Recognition by Class II Prolyl-tRNA Synthetase” Nucleic Acids Research (2008) 36, 2514-2521

Brian Burke, Songon An and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Functional Guanine-Arginine Interaction Between tRNAPro and Prolyl-tRNA Synthetase that Couples Binding and Catalysis” Biochimica et Biophysica Acta – Proteins and Proteomics (2008) 1784, 1222-1225

Songon An*, Ravindra Kumar, Erin D. Sheets*, and Stephen J. Benkovic* “Reversible Compartmentalization of de novo Purine Biosynthetic Complexes in Living Cells” Science (2008) 320, 103-106 *Co-corresponding authors

Anjali Mascarenhas, Songon An, Abbey E. Rogen, Susan Martinis and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Fidelity Mechanism of Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases” in Protein Engineering (2009) Eds. Uttam L. RajBhandary and Caroline Köhrer, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, ISBN: 978-3-540-70937-4, e-ISBN: 978-3-540-70941-1, pp155-203

Songon An, Minjoung Kyoung, Jasmina J. Allen, Kevan M. Shokat and Stephen J. Benkovic “Dynamic Regulation of a Metabolic Multi-Enzyme Complex by Protein Kinase CK2” Journal of Biological Chemistry(2010) 285, 11093-11099

Songon An, Yijun Deng, John W. Tomsho, Minjoung Kyoung, and Stephen J. Benkovic “Microtubule-assisted Mechanism for Functional Metabolic Macromolecular Complex Formation” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (2010) 107, 12872-12876

Byung Ran So, Songon An, Sandeep Kumar, Mom Das, Daniel A. Turner, Christopher M. Hadad and Karin Musier-Forsyth “Substrate-mediated fidelity mechanism ensures accurate decoding of proline codons”Journal of Biological Chemistry (2011) 286, 31810-31820

Florence Verrier*, Songon An*, Ann M. Ferrie, Haiyan Sun, Minjoung Kyoung, Huayun Deng, Ye Fang and Stephen J. Benkovic “GPCR regulates the assembly of a multienzyme complex for purine biosynthesis”(2011) 7, 909-915 *Co-first authors