Education
| BS | Forest Products Chemistry | Nanjing Forestry University | Nanjing, China |
| PhD | Wood Chemistry and Biochemistry | Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, Va. |
Research Areas
Metabolomics, Biological mass spectrometry, Bioanalytical chemistry, LC-UV-MS-SPE-NMR
Research Description
My research interests center on metabolomics and its application in biological and biochemical research. Specifically, I am interested in developing mass spectrometry (MS)-based metabolomics protocol and technology, and applying the techniques in profiling changes of metabolism in animals, plants and microbes in response to genetic and/or environmental disturbances.
Metabolomics is the systematic identification and quantification of the cellular metabolites (or small-molecules) using advanced technologies combined with multivariate statistical methods for data interpretation. These advanced technologies include high resolution mass spectrometry coupled to gas chromatograph (GC-MS) or ultrahigh performance liquid chromatograph (UPLC-MS), LC-MS-SPE (solid phase extraction)-NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance).
Selected Publications
Bhatia A, Sarma SJ, Lei Z, Sumner LW. (2019). UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS-SPE-NMR: A Solution to the Metabolomics Grand Challenge of Higher-Throughput, Confident Metabolite Identifications. Methods Mol Biol. 2037:113-133. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9690-2_7. [PubMed]
Lei Z, Watson BS, Huhman D, Yang DS, Sumner LW. (2019). Large-Scale Profiling of Saponins in Different Ecotypes of Medicago truncatula. Front Plant Sci. 10:850. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2019.00850. eCollection 2019. [PubMed]
Marshall BL, Liu Y, Farrington MJ, Mao J, Helferich W, Schenk AK, Bivens NJ, Sarma SJ, Lei Z, Sumner LW, Joshi T, Rosenfeld CS. (2019). Early genistein exposure of California mice and gut microbiota-brain axis effects. J Endocrinol. 2019 Jun 1. doi: 10.1530/JOE-19-0214. Epub ahead of print. [PubMed]
Poudel AN, Holtsclaw RE, Kimberlin A, Sen S, Zeng S, Joshi T, Lei Z, Sumner LW, Singh K, Matsuura H, Koo AJ. (2019). 12-Hydroxy-jasmonoyl-L-isoleucine is an active jasmonate that signals through CORONATINE INSENSITIVE 1 and contributes to the wound response in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell Physiol. 2019 May 31. doi: 10.1093/pcp/pcz109. Epub ahead of print. [PubMed]
Khan N, Pu J, Pu C, Xu H, Gu X, Lei Z, Huang F, Nasir MA, Ullah R. (2019). Experimental and mechanism study: Partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide gel degradation and deplugging via ultrasonic waves and chemical agents. Ultrason Sonochem. 56:350-360. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2019.04.018. [PubMed]
Wang J, Lv Z, Lei Z, Chen Z, Lv B, Yang H, Wang Z, Song Q. (2019). Expression and functional analysis of cytochrome P450 genes in the wolf spider Pardosa pseudoannulata under cadmium stress. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 172:19-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2019.01.034. [PubMed]
Lei Z, Sumner BW, Bhatia A, Sarma SJ, Sumner LW. (2019). UHPLC-MS Analyses of Plant Flavonoids. Curr Protoc Plant Biol. 4(1):e20085. doi: 10.1002/cppb.20085. [PubMed]
Vieira-Potter VJ, Cross TL, Swanson KS, Sarma SJ, Lei Z, Sumner LW, Rosenfeld CS. (2018). Soy-Induced Fecal Metabolome Changes in Ovariectomized and Intact Female Rats: Relationship with Cardiometabolic Health. Sci Rep. 8(1):16896. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-35171-3. [PubMed]
Qiu F, Lei Z, Sumner LW. (2018). MetExpert: An expert system to enhance gas chromatography‒mass spectrometry-based metabolite identifications. Anal Chim Acta. 1037:316-326. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2018.03.052. [PubMed]
Ho KV, Lei Z, Sumner LW, Coggeshall MV, Hsieh HY, Stewart GC, Lin CH. (2018). Identifying Antibacterial Compounds in Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra) Using a Metabolomics Approach. Metabolites. 8(4). doi: 10.3390/metabo8040058. [PubMed]
Lei Z, Kranawetter C, Sumner BW, Huhman D, Wherritt DJ, Thomas AL, Rohla C, Sumner LW. (2018). Metabolomics of Two Pecan Varieties Provides Insights into Scab Resistance. Metabolites. 8(4). doi: 10.3390/metabo8040056. [PubMed]