Kai Cai

1.7k total citations · 1 hit paper
40 papers, 1.2k citations indexed

About

Kai Cai is a scholar working on Molecular Biology, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment and Inorganic Chemistry. According to data from OpenAlex, Kai Cai has authored 40 papers receiving a total of 1.2k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 20 papers in Molecular Biology, 10 papers in Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment and 8 papers in Inorganic Chemistry. Recurrent topics in Kai Cai's work include Metalloenzymes and iron-sulfur proteins (10 papers), Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications (6 papers) and Metal complexes synthesis and properties (5 papers). Kai Cai is often cited by papers focused on Metalloenzymes and iron-sulfur proteins (10 papers), Metal-Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Applications (6 papers) and Metal complexes synthesis and properties (5 papers). Kai Cai collaborates with scholars based in United States, China and Japan. Kai Cai's co-authors include John L. Markley, Ronnie O. Frederick, Marco Tonelli, Wei‐Yin Sun, Zhi Su, Jin Hae Kim, Mustafa Kocak, Jordan Rossen, Irene M. Ghobrial and Sandro Santagata and has published in prestigious journals such as Chemical Reviews, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Nature Communications.

In The Last Decade

Kai Cai

38 papers receiving 1.2k citations

Hit Papers

Mitochondrial metabolism promotes adaptation to proteotox... 2019 2026 2021 2023 2019 100 200 300 400
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. Mitochondrial metabolism promotes adaptation to proteotoxic stress
    2019 436 citations Peter Tsvetkov, Alexandre Detappe et al. Nature Chemical Biology profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Kai Cai United States 17 587 264 248 231 202 40 1.2k
Wing Hang Tong United States 7 396 0.7× 189 0.7× 341 1.4× 128 0.6× 145 0.7× 7 778
Anjos L. Macedo Portugal 17 251 0.4× 172 0.7× 148 0.6× 185 0.8× 70 0.3× 42 807
Jefferson S. Plegaria United States 11 479 0.8× 157 0.6× 155 0.6× 24 0.1× 158 0.8× 13 808
Bowen Li China 29 945 1.6× 88 0.3× 37 0.1× 30 0.1× 192 1.0× 84 2.5k
Margareta Nordling Sweden 26 1.0k 1.8× 121 0.5× 166 0.7× 36 0.2× 421 2.1× 50 1.9k
M.A. Pearson United States 10 537 0.9× 68 0.3× 223 0.9× 27 0.1× 328 1.6× 17 1.3k
Changrong Shi China 19 672 1.1× 52 0.2× 38 0.2× 36 0.2× 275 1.4× 57 2.4k
Robert Y. Igarashi United States 23 387 0.7× 1.3k 5.1× 476 1.9× 35 0.2× 316 1.6× 38 2.2k
Yunsheng Hu China 27 336 0.6× 297 1.1× 149 0.6× 22 0.1× 96 0.5× 76 2.5k
Bin Peng China 25 1.0k 1.7× 64 0.2× 115 0.5× 10 0.0× 746 3.7× 84 1.9k

Countries citing papers authored by Kai Cai

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Kai Cai's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Kai Cai with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Kai Cai more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Kai Cai

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Kai Cai. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Kai Cai. The network helps show where Kai Cai may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Kai Cai

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Kai Cai. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Kai Cai based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Kai Cai. Kai Cai is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Cai, Kai, Rochele Yamamoto, Mohammed Akhter Hossain, et al.. (2025). Structure and activation of the Drosophila insulin receptor by three Drosophila insulin-like peptides. Nature Communications. 16(1). 9504–9504. 1 indexed citations
2.
Yang, Jie, Matt Larson, Joseph Kim, et al.. (2023). Correlative montage parallel array cryo-tomography for in situ structural cell biology. Nature Methods. 20(10). 1537–1543. 20 indexed citations
3.
Gui, Long, et al.. (2023). Cryo-tomography reveals rigid-body motion and organization of apicomplexan invasion machinery. Nature Communications. 14(1). 1775–1775. 20 indexed citations
4.
Cai, Kai, Xuewu Zhang, & Xiao‐chen Bai. (2022). Cryo-electron Microscopic Analysis of Single-Pass Transmembrane Receptors. Chemical Reviews. 122(17). 13952–13988. 14 indexed citations
5.
Cai, Kai, et al.. (2022). The His-tag as a decoy modulating preferred orientation in cryoEM. Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences. 9. 912072–912072. 5 indexed citations
6.
Cai, Kai, Yanhe Zhao, Lei Zhao, et al.. (2021). Structural organization of the C1b projection within the ciliary central apparatus. Journal of Cell Science. 134(21). 6 indexed citations
7.
Cai, Kai, Ronnie O. Frederick, & John L. Markley. (2020). ISCU interacts with NFU1, and ISCU[4Fe-4S] transfers its Fe-S cluster to NFU1 leading to the production of holo-NFU1. Journal of Structural Biology. 210(2). 107491–107491. 16 indexed citations
8.
Chang, Wei, Shizhou Yu, Jing Yu, et al.. (2020). Comparative transcriptome and metabolomic profiling reveal the complex mechanisms underlying the developmental dynamics of tobacco leaves. Genomics. 112(6). 4009–4022. 14 indexed citations
9.
Tsvetkov, Peter, Alexandre Detappe, Kai Cai, et al.. (2019). Mitochondrial metabolism promotes adaptation to proteotoxic stress. Nature Chemical Biology. 15(7). 681–689. 436 indexed citations breakdown →
10.
Cai, Kai, et al.. (2018). Conformational flexibility in the enterovirus RNA replication platform. RNA. 25(3). 376–387. 9 indexed citations
11.
Cai, Kai, Ronnie O. Frederick, Marco Tonelli, & John L. Markley. (2018). Interactions of iron-bound frataxin with ISCU and ferredoxin on the cysteine desulfurase complex leading to Fe-S cluster assembly. Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry. 183. 107–116. 46 indexed citations
12.
Cai, Kai, Ronnie O. Frederick, Hesam Dashti, & John L. Markley. (2018). Architectural Features of Human Mitochondrial Cysteine Desulfurase Complexes from Crosslinking Mass Spectrometry and Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering. Structure. 26(8). 1127–1136.e4. 22 indexed citations
13.
Cai, Kai, Ronnie O. Frederick, Marco Tonelli, & John L. Markley. (2018). ISCU(M108I) and ISCU(D39V) Differ from Wild-Type ISCU in Their Failure To Form Cysteine Desulfurase Complexes Containing Both Frataxin and Ferredoxin. Biochemistry. 57(9). 1491–1500. 17 indexed citations
14.
Cai, Kai, Gaohua Liu, Ronnie O. Frederick, et al.. (2016). Structural/Functional Properties of Human NFU1, an Intermediate [4Fe-4S] Carrier in Human Mitochondrial Iron-Sulfur Cluster Biogenesis. Structure. 24(12). 2080–2091. 41 indexed citations
15.
16.
Markley, John L., Jin Hae Kim, Jameson R. Bothe, et al.. (2013). Metamorphic protein IscU alternates conformations in the course of its role as the scaffold protein for iron–sulfur cluster biosynthesis and delivery. FEBS Letters. 587(8). 1172–1179. 68 indexed citations
17.
Zhao, Yue, Guan‐Cheng Xu, Man Chen, et al.. (2010). Synthesis, Structures, and Properties of Zinc(II) and Cadmium(II) Complexes with 1,2,4,5-Tetrakis(imidazol-1-ylmethyl)benzene and Multicarboxylate Ligands. Crystal Growth & Design. 10(6). 2553–2562. 77 indexed citations
18.
19.
Li, Zicheng, Shanmei Cheng, Yi Qin, & Kai Cai. (2008). A novel line-to-line back EMF calculation for sensorless brushless DC motor drives. International Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems. 1406–1411. 11 indexed citations
20.
Qi, Zhao‐Peng, Zheng‐Shuai Bai, Qing Yuan, et al.. (2008). pH-dependent self-assembly of copper(II) complexes with a new imidazole-containing polyamine ligand: Synthesis, structure and magnetic property. Polyhedron. 27(12). 2672–2680. 27 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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