Weicheng Peng

The paper identifies and characterizes nitrate-binding affinity differences in staphylococcal NreA homologues, showing that a conserved binding pocket allows recognition while distal sequence variation tunes affinity.

The paper introduces NitrOFF, a fluorescent biosensor for real-time nitrate detection in mammalian cells, showing it responds to nitrate with a turn-off fluorescence mechanism.

The paper uses directed evolution to create a chloride-sensitive fluorescent protein indicator called ChlorOFF by mutating OFPxm.