Corresponding members :: USANOV Sergey Aleksandrovich

— Graduated from Belarusian State University (1973).
— Since 1973 - at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR.
— At the same time, in 1993–1995 - Professor of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS, North Carolina, USA), in 1997–2001 - Professor of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Texas Medical Center (Dallas, USA), and in 2003–2004 - Professor of the Osaka University Center (Japan).
— Since 2003 - Head of the Laboratory, in 2005–2010 - Head of the Department, since 2011 - Director of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
— Simultaneously, in 2011–2012 - General Director of the State Scientific Production Association “Chemical Synthesis and Biotechnology”, since 2010 - Academician-Secretary of the Department of Chemistry and Earth Sciences, Member of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Scientific works in the field of bioorganic chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology. Completed studies on the structure and function of redox proteins of cytochrome P450-dependent systems involved in the biosynthesis of the most important natural bioregulators (steroid hormones, vitamins, bile acids) and xenobiotic metabolism, aimed at elucidating the molecular mechanisms of a number of hereditary human diseases associated with impaired biosynthesis of the most important bioregulators and hormonal regulation. He developed the scientific foundations and technology for the isolation and purification of the most important membrane-bound enzymes and carried out their physico-chemical characterization. He put into practice a number of molecular biological research methods, developed technologies for heterologous expression of membrane proteins in bacteria, allowing to obtain the most important recombinant human proteins in highly purified state, and approaches to using the principles of monooxygenase catalysis and recombinant human proteins for the needs of biotechnology and medical practice. Created a direction - structural genomics of steroidogenesis, within the framework of which he established the spatial structure of the most important cytochrome P450 isoforms involved in the biosynthesis of cholesterol, glucocorticoids, mineralcorticoids, vitamin D3 and bile acids.

Author of more than 350 scientific papers, 20 copyright certificates and patents.

Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the GDR (1990) for the best work in the field of natural sciences, laureate of the prize of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for a series of works (2013).

Major papers:

Guryev O.L., Gilep A.A., Usanov S.A., Estabrook R.W. Interaction of apo-cytochrome b5 with cytochromes P4503A4 and P45017A. Relevance of heme transfer reactions // Biochemistry. 2001, Vol.40, P.5018-5031.
Usanov S.A., Gilep A.A., Lepesheva G.I., Strushkevich N.V., Azeva T.N., Graham S., Peterson J.A., Estabrook R.W. Probing the interaction of cytochrome P450scc (CYP11A1) with adrenodoxin: evaluating site-directed mutations by molecular modeling // Biochemistry. 2002, Vol.41, No.26, P.8310-20.
Min L., Strushkevich N.V., Harnastai I.N., Iwamoto H., Gilep A.A., Takemori H., Usanov S.A., Nonaka Y., Hori H., Vinson G.P., Okamoto M. Molecular identification of adrenal inner zone antigen as a heme-binding protein // FEBS J. 2005, Vol.272, No.22, P.5832-43.
Cherviakovsky E.M., Bolibrukh D.A., Baranovsky A.V., Vlasova T.M., Kurchenko V.P., Gilep A.A., Usanov S.A. Oxidative modification of quercetin by hemeproteins // Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 2006, Vol.342, No.2, P.459-64.
Duarte M.P., Palma B.B., Gilep A.A., Laires A., Oliveira J.S., Usanov S.A., Rueff J., Kranendonk M. The stimulatory role of human cytochrome b5 in the bioactivation activities of human CYP1A2, 2A6 and 2E1: a new cell expression system to study cytochrome P450-mediated biotransformation // Mutagenesis. 2007, Vol.22, No.1, P.75-81.
Harnastai I.N., Gilep A.A., Usanov S.A. The development of an efficient system for heterologous expression of cytochrome P450s in Escherichia coli using hemA gene co-expression // Protein Expr. Purif. 2007, Vol.46, No.1, P.47-55.
Strushkevich N, Gilep AA, Shen L, Arrowsmith CH, Edwards AM, Usanov SA, Park HW. Structural insights into aldosterone synthase substrate specificity and targeted inhibition. Mol Endocrinol. 2013 Feb;27(2):315-24.
Yantsevich AV, Dichenko YV, Mackenzie F, Mukha DV, Baranovsky AV, Gilep AA, Usanov SA, Strushkevich NV. Human steroid and oxysterol 7α-hydroxylase CYP7B1: substrate specificity, azole binding and misfolding of clinically relevant mutants. FEBS J. 2014 Mar; 281(6):1700-13.
Sergeev GV, Gilep AA, Usanov SA. The role of cytochrome b5 structural domains in interaction with cytochromes P450. Biochemistry (Mosc). 2014 May; 79(5):406-16.
Tempel W, Grabovec I, MacKenzie F, Dichenko YV, Usanov SA, Gilep AA, Park HW, Strushkevich N. Structural characterization of human cholesterol 7α-hydroxylase. J. Lipid Res. 2014 Sep; 55(9):1925-32.
Cherkesova TS, Hargrove TY, Vanrell MC, Ges I, Usanov SA, Romano PS, Lepesheva GI. Sequence variation in CYP51A from the Y strain of Trypanosoma cruzi alters its sensitivity to inhibition. FEBS Lett. 2014 Nov 3; 588(21):3878-85.
Shcherbinin DS, Gnedenko OV, Khmeleva SA, Usanov SA, Gilep AA, Yantsevich AV, Shkel TV, Yushkevich IV, Radko SP, Ivanov AS, Veselovsky AV, Archakov AI. Computer-aided design of aptamers for cytochrome p450. J. Struct Biol. 2015 Jul 10. pii: S1047-8477(15)30028-9.