Ji Lab Organelle Biology · HUST

Tongji Medical College · Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Ji Lab

We study how membrane-bound organelles communicate through contact sites, lipid transfer proteins, and dynamic remodeling of cellular membranes.

Research Interests

The ER as a platform for organelle communication.

The endoplasmic reticulum forms contact sites with endosomes, lysosomes, mitochondria, the Golgi apparatus, and lipid droplets. At these interfaces, cells exchange lipids and signals without membrane fusion, coordinate organelle biogenesis, and maintain metabolic homeostasis.

The Ji Lab combines live-cell imaging, biochemical reconstitution, lipid analysis, and disease-relevant cell biology to understand how these contacts are built and how their failure contributes to human disease.

Explore research projects

Research Projects

Published lines of investigation.

Each project below is anchored in peer-reviewed work from the lab and illustrated with original schematic artwork inspired by published mechanisms.

Illustration of ER-endolysosome membrane contact sites ER-Endolysosome Contacts Illustration of ER-mitochondria and lipid droplet contacts ER-Mitochondria and Lipid Droplets Illustration of ER exit site and Golgi interface ER Exit Site-Golgi Interface Illustration of lipid droplet biogenesis and phosphoinositide transport Lipid Droplet Biogenesis Illustration of ER sheets and translocon-associated SigmaR1 ER Sheets and Translocon Control Illustration of bridge-like lipid transfer proteins Bridge-Like Lipid Transfer Proteins

News

Recent public milestones.

  • The SigmaR1 paper appeared in Nature Communications, defining an ER-sheet auxiliary translocon factor with lipid-binding activity.

  • The Sec14L6 paper appeared in Nature Communications, defining phosphoinositide transport during lipid droplet biogenesis.

  • Work on VPS13B/COH1 and Sec23IP was published in Journal of Cell Biology, linking ER exit site-Golgi interfaces to Cohen syndrome biology.

  • The BLTP1-SHIP164-BLTP2 study was published in Cell Discovery, describing lipid-transfer-dependent Rab14 endosome budding.

All public news

Selected Publications

Representative papers.

Publication list