Xin Liu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Liu is an Associate Professor in the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Department of Biophysics. He is W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research of the UT Southwestern Medical Center and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Liu did his graduate research with Dr. Ronen Marmorstein at the Wistar Institute and University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2007. Dr. Liu was a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Roger Kornberg at Stanford University from 2008 to 2011. Dr. Liu joined the faculty of UT Southwestern in 2011.

Dr. Liu studies the molecular and biophysical mechanisms of chromatin, epigenetics and transcription in development and disease. A current focus is to understand how the developmentally regulated heterochromatin is established, maintained and inherited. To achieve this goal, the Liu lab uses various research tools, such as biochemical reconstitution, X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, proteomics and genomics by next-generation sequencing, to study large assemblies of relevant protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid chromatin complexes.

Undergraduate

Nanjing University - China (2000), Biochemistry

Graduate School

University of Pennsylvania (2007), Chemistry

• Chromatin and Epigenetics
• Chromatin Dysregulation in Disease
• Non-coding RNAs
• Structural Biology

Featured Publications

A Structural Perspective on Gene Repression by Polycomb Repressive Complex 2.

Liu X, Subcell Biochem 2021 96 519-562

A partially disordered region connects gene repression and activation functions of EZH2.

Jiao L, Shubbar M, Yang X, Zhang Q, Chen S, Wu Q, Chen Z, Rizo J, Liu X, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2020 Jul

A Dimeric Structural Scaffold for PRC2-PCL Targeting to CpG Island Chromatin.

Chen S, Jiao L, Liu X, Yang X, Liu X, Mol. Cell 2020 Jan

Unique Structural Platforms of Suz12 Dictate Distinct Classes of PRC2 for Chromatin Binding.

Chen S, Jiao L, Shubbar M, Yang X, Liu X Mol. Cell 2018 Mar 69 5 840-852.e5

Conserved RNA-binding specificity of polycomb repressive complex 2 is achieved by dispersed amino acid patches in EZH2.

Long Y, Bolanos B, Gong L, Liu W, Goodrich KJ, Yang X, Chen S, Gooding AR, Maegley KA, Gajiwala KS, Brooun A, Cech TR, Liu X Elife 2017 Nov 6

Polycomb repressive complex 2 in an autoinhibited state.

Bratkowski M, Yang X, Liu X J. Biol. Chem. 2017 08 292 32 13323-13332

Structural basis of histone H3K27 trimethylation by an active polycomb repressive complex 2.

Jiao L, Liu X Science 2015 Oct 350 6258 aac4383

An Evolutionarily Conserved Structural Platform for PRC2 Inhibition by a Class of Ezh2 Inhibitors.

Bratkowski M, Yang X, Liu X, Sci Rep 2018 06 8 1 9092

Structural dissection of an interaction between transcription initiation and termination factors implicated in promoter-terminator crosstalk.

Bratkowski M, Unarta IC, Zhu L, Shubbar M, Huang X, Liu X J. Biol. Chem. 2017 Nov

Developing EZH2-Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer.

Frankel AE, Liu X, Minna JD Cancer Discov 2016 Sep 6 9 949-52

• Rita Allen Scholar
  Rita Allen Foundation (2012)
• CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research
  Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (2011)
• W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research
  UT Southwestern Medical Center (2011)
• Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship
  The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (2008)
• Dr. Monica H.M. Shander Award
  The Wistar Institute (2006)