Personal Profile
Xu Tao, an outstanding young and middle-aged talents introduced by Sun Yat-sen University, is a professor and doctoral supervisor. He obtained his Ph.D. in Cell Biology at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (now the Shanghai Institute of Life Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences). He conducted postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute and the J. David Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco. He was introduced back to China by Sun Yat-sen University in 2018 and has been working here full-time since then. Since 2017, he has published multiple articles as an independent corresponding author or first author in journals such as Nature and Journal of Experimental Medicine, with a total citation count of over 2,000.

Major Scientific Contributions
TH17 cells play a crucial protective role in eliminating bacterial and fungal infections, but they also play a very important pathogenic role in a series of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore, studying the development and differentiation of TH17 cells is of great significance. Dr. Xu Tao has made important progress in the development and differentiation of TH17 cells. His series of work includes:

  • For the first time internationally, he revealed that glutamine metabolism can regulate the fate determination of TH17 cells by affecting epigenetics and transcription (Nature, 2017, 2023).
  • He demonstrated the important role of the TCR-Lck/Fyn-STAT3 axis in regulating TH17 cell differentiation and proposed a novel theoretical model that TCR signals and cytokine signals act synergistically to induce the phosphorylation of STAT3, thereby promoting the fate determination of TH17 cells (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2024).

Cell Metabolism, Nature Review Immunology, Cell Research and other top domestic and international journals have published special comments on this work. Relevant work has been frequently cited positively by top journals such as Nature, Cell, Science, Immunity, Nature Immunology, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Review Immunology, Annual Review Immunology, and Nature Review Drug Discovery. This work provides a new understanding of the development and differentiation of TH17 cells and the role of TCR signals and intracellular metabolism in T cell fate determination, and provides new targets for the development of drugs targeting TH17 cells.

Current Research Directions
Tumor immunotherapy is the most significant breakthrough in the field of biomedical sciences in recent years. Science magazine listed it as the most important scientific breakthrough of 2013. The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to two scientists, James Allison and Tasuku Honjo, who made great contributions to tumor immunotherapy, especially immune checkpoint therapy. Compared with traditional chemotherapy drugs, tumor immunotherapy has the advantages of a long maintenance time after cure (which can last for more than 10 years) and no disease recurrence (disease-free survival).

Currently, the immune checkpoint blockade therapy used in clinical practice mainly restores the function of antigen-specific T cells, enabling them to better exert tumor-killing ability.

The laboratory is currently focused on the following areas:

  1. Rapid identification and characterization of antigen-specific T cells and the peptide antigens they recognize.
  2. Studying how antigen-specific T cells develop and differentiate within tumors, so as to provide new targets for improving the tumor-killing function of such T cells. At the same time, attention is also paid to how antigen-specific T cells develop and differentiate in other diseases (such as autoimmune diseases) in vivo, so as to provide new targets for more precise targeting of pathogenic T cells.
  3. How tumor cells escape immune surveillance.

At the same time, we will also strive to translate the results of these basic research into clinical applications.

Published Articles

(# Co-first author, *corresponding author)

  1. Zhen Qin#, Ruining Wang#, Ping Hou, Yuanyuan Zhang, Qianmu Yuan, Ying Wang, Yuedong Yang, Tao Xu*. . Journal of Experimental Medicine 221(03), (2024)
  2. Zhen Qin#, Ping Hou#, Huizhen Lin, Minghui Chen, Ruining Wang, Tao Xu*. . International Immunopharmacology 134, (2024)
  3. #, #, #, , , , , , , *, *, *. Enhanced microbiota profiling in patients with quiescent Crohn’s disease through comparison with paired healthy first-degree relatives. Cell Reports Medicine 5(7), 2024.
  4. Tao Xu*, Zhen Qin, Xiaohu Wang, Chen Dong*, Edward M. Driggers*, Sheng Ding*. Reply to: GOT1 constrains TH17 cell differentiation, while promoting iTreg cell differentiation. Nature 614, E12-E14 (2023)
  5. #, #, , , , , , * and *. KRT6A Promotes Lung Cancer Cell Growth and Invasion Through MYC-Regulated Pentose Phosphate Pathway.  9: 694071 (2021);
  6. Sijing Cheng, Dingfeng Wu, Jie Li, Yifeng Zou, Yunle Wan, Lihan Shen, Lixin Zhu, Mang Shi, Linlin Hou, Tao Xu, Na Jiao, Yichen Li, Yibo Huang, Zhipeng Tang, Mingwei Xu, Shusong Jiang, Maokun Li, Guangjun Yan, Ping Lan, Ruixin Zhu*. . Respiratory research 20, 1-12 (2020).
  7. Tao Xu#, Kelly M. Stewart#, Xiaohu Wang#, Kai Liu, Min Xie, Jae Kyu Ryu, Ke Li, Tianhua Ma, Haixia Wang, Lu Ni, Saiyong Zhu, Nan Cao, Dongwei Zhu, Yu Zhang, Katerina Akassoglou, Chen Dong*, Edward M. Driggers* and Sheng Ding*. Metabolic control of TH17/iTreg balance through an epigenetic mechanism. Nature 548, 228-233 (2017). Preview at Cell Metabolism 26, 588-590. 
  8. Baoming Nie, Tao Nie, Xiaoyan Hui, Ping Gu, Liufeng Mao, Kuai Li, Ran Yuan, Jiashun Zheng, Haixia Wang, Ke Li, Shibing Tang, Yu Zhang, Tao Xu, Aimin Xu, Donghai Wu, Sheng Ding*. . Cell reports 18(3), 624-635 (2017)
  9. Nan Cao, Yu Huang, Jiashun Zheng, C Ian Spencer, Yu Zhang, Ji-Dong Fu, Baoming Nie, Min Xie, Mingliang Zhang, Haixia Wang, Tianhua Ma, Tao Xu, Guilai Shi, Deepak Srivastava, Sheng Ding*. 
  10. Yu Zhang#, Nan Cao#, Yu Huang, C Ian Spencer, Ji-dong Fu, Chen Yu, Kai Liu, Baoming Nie, Tao Xu, Ke Li, Shaohua Xu, Benoit G Bruneau, Deepak Srivastava, Sheng Ding*.  
  12. Tianhua Ma#, Jun Li#, Yue Xu#, Chen Yu, Tao Xu, Haixia Wang, Kai Liu, Nan Cao, Bao-ming Nie, Saiyong Zhu, Shaohua Xu, Ke Li, Wan-Guo Wei, Kun-Liang Guan and Sheng Ding*. Atg5-independent autophagy regulates mitochondrial clearance and is essential for iPSC reprogramming. Nature Cell Biology 17, 1379-1387 (2015)
  15. Na Wei, Yi Shi, Lan N Truong, Kathleen M Fisch, Tao Xu, Elisabeth Gardiner, Guangsen Fu, Yun-Shiuan Olivia Hsu, Shuji Kishi, Andrew I Su, Xiaohua Wu, Xiang-Lei Yang*. . Molecular cell, 56 (2), 323-32 (2014).
  16. Tao Xu#, Mingliang Zhang#, Timothy Laurent, Min Xie, and Sheng Ding. Chemical approaches for modulating lineages-restricted stem cells and progenitors. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2(5):355-61 (2013).(Invited Review) 
  17. Guangsen Fu, Tao Xu, Yi Shi, Na Wei, Xiang-Lei Yang*. . J Biol Chem 287(12), 9330-9334 (2012)
  18. Tao Xu#, Xiaohu Wang#, Bo Zhong, Roza I. Nurieva, Sheng Ding*, and Chen Dong*. 
  19. Tao Xu#, Lei Zhang#, Zhen H. Geng, Hai-Bo Wang, Jin-Tao Wang, Ming Chen, Jian-Guo Geng*. P-selectin Cross-links PSGL-1 and enhances Neutrophil Adhesion to Fibrinogen and ICAM-1 in a Src Kinase-dependent, but GPCR-independent Mechanism. Cell Adhesion & Migration, 1(3). 1-9 (2007),
  20. Hai-Bo Wang#, Jin-Tao Wang#, Lei Zhang#, Zhen H Geng#, Wei-Li Xu#, Tao Xu#, Yuqing Huo, Xueliang Zhu, Edward F Plow, Ming Chen* & Jian-Guo Geng*. P-selectin primes leukocyte integrin activation during inflammation. Nature Immunology 2007, 8(8):882-92. 

Patent

  1. Tao Xu and Sheng Ding. Methods of Treating Diseases by Metabolic control of T-Cell differentiation, PCT/US2017/013252

Research Projects

  • National Key R & D Program Project, 2019 - 2024
  • General Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2024 - 2027
  • General Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2022 - 2025
  • General Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2020 - 2023
  • General Project of the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, 2021 - 2023
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team Project of Guangdong Province, 2020 - 2025
  • Key Cultivation Project for Young Teachers of Sun Yat-sen University, 2019 - 2021
  • University-Enterprise Cooperation Project, 2023 - 2026