Recently, the research team led by You Delin, an Associate Professor of State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, SJTU, succeeded in developing novel and orthogonal technologies to map phosphorothioate (PT) modifications of DNA. Their latest discovery was illustrated in paperGenomic mapping of phosphorothioates reveals partial modification of short consensus sequences,published online on Journal Nature Communications.

You Delin's research team, supervised by professor Deng Zixin, discovered that it is the dnd gene products that incorporate sulphur into the DNA backbone as a PT in a sequence- and stereo-specific manner. So far, many scientists have concentrated on this subject and thus formed a new research field. You's discovery is of great significance as it helps people have better understanding of secondary modifications of DNA.