Key publications
PEX39 facilitates the peroxisomal import of PTS2-containing proteins
Chen WW*#, Rodrigues TA*, Wendscheck D*, Pedrosa AG, Yang C, Francisco T, Möcklinghoff T, Zografakis A, Nunes-Silva B, Avraham RE, Silva AR, Ferreira MJ, Das H, Koster J, Neuwirth S, Bender J, Oeljeklaus S, Sondhi V, Gatsogiannis C, Schuldiner M, Zalckvar E, Hofmann K, Waterham HR, DeBerardinis RJ†#, Azevedo JE†#, & Warscheid B†#
Nature Cell Biology (2025)
Description: Discovery of PEX39, first human peroxisomal biogenesis protein discovered in more than 20 years, and identification of a new paradigm in peroxisomal protein import.
Featured in News and Views “Pieces of the peroxisomal import puzzle,” Nature Cell Biology (2025)
Technologies for decoding cancer metabolism with spatial resolution
Chen WW, Pacold ME, Sabatini DM, & Kanarek N
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med (2024)
Description: Review of Rapid Organellar Immunopurification technology that we previously developed for studying organellar metabolism.
A PEROXO-Tag enables rapid isolation of peroxisomes from human cells
Ray GJ, Boydston EA, Shortt E, Wyant GA, Lourido S, Chen WW*#, & Sabatini DM*#
iScience (2020)
Description: Development of technology for rapid immunopurification of peroxisomes from cultured human cells (PEROXO-IP) to enable biological discovery.
MITO-Tag Mice enable rapid isolation and multimodal profiling of mitochondria from specific cell types in vivo
Bayraktar EC, Baudrier L, Ozerdem C, Lewis CA, Chan SH, Kunchok T, Abu-Remaileh M, Cangelosi AL, Sabatini DM*#, Birsoy K*#, & Chen WW*#
PNAS (2019)
Description: Development of MITO-Tag Mouse, which enables rapid and cell-type-specific isolation of mitochondria from complex tissues for profiling of mitochondrial metabolites - first implementation of Rapid Organellar Immunopurification technology in vivo.
Featured in Commentary “Probing mitochondrial metabolism in vivo,” PNAS (2020)
“*” or “†” denotes that these authors contributed equally to this work.
“#” denotes corresponding authors.
Complete publication list can be found here.
Absolute Quantification of Matrix Metabolites Reveals the Dynamics of Mitochondrial Metabolism
Chen WW, Freinkman E, Wang T, Birsoy K, & Sabatini DM
Cell (2016)
Description: Development of Rapid Mitochondrial Immunopurification (MITO-IP) technique, which achieves rapid and specific isolation of mitochondria to enable robust profiling of mitochondrial metabolites. Using the MITO-IP, we generated a quantitative compendium of mitochondrial metabolites from human cells across a variety of metabolic states. The MITO-IP was the first example of the Rapid Organellar Immunopurification technology, which has now been adapted to many other organelles and become a powerful engine for biological discovery.
Featured in Research Highlight “Capturing metabolic dynamics in mitochondria,” Nature Methods (2016)
Chosen as a “2016 Breakthrough of the Year” by Science Signaling (2017)
Highlighted in “Metabolic analysis as a driver for discovery, diagnosis, and therapy,” Cell (2022)