Prof. Dr. Guillaume Berionni, Department of Chemistry and Namur Institute of Structured Matter, University of Namur

Chiral boranes, phosphines and pyridines for applications in main-group chemistry

Ass.-Prof. Cesar A. Ramirez Sarmiento

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Fold-switching, frustration and prediction of the metamorphic protein RfaH

A recently described class of metamorphic proteins is able to fold-switch between two structurally dissimilar native states to encode or regulate different biological functions. The bacterial transcription factor RfaH is a quintessential example of such proteins, by exhibiting an all-α to all-β fold-switch of a whole protein domain to regulate its function. These proteins constitute a challenge for biophysical characterizations, identification of key residues driving the fold-switch and state-of-the-art protein structure predictions methods, such as AlphaFold2 (AF2).
Using RfaH as a case study, we will showcase how the use of simplified structure-based models allows to understand the refolding pathways of RfaH both in isolation and when bound to RNA polymerase. We will also demonstrate how the use of local energetic frustration in MD simulations and across protein sequences aids in identifying key residues involved in its fold-switch behavior, some of which we have experimentally validated. Finallly, inspired by these results and by other works using subsampling of multiple sequence alignments (MSA) for protein structure prediction, we will show how a strategy of single position masking of the MSA in AlphaFold2 succesfully explores the conformational landscape of RfaH.

Dr. Mario Wurglics, Institut für Pharmazeutische Chemie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Best of Neue Arzneistoffe 2024 – Wirkmechanismen und therapeutische Bedeutung verstehen

Juergen Plitzko, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

A cryo-ET Christmas Carol

Hybrid Information

Webinar link: https://mpi-biochemistry.zoom-x.de/s/64180753743
Password: 192953
Webinar ID: 641 807 537 43

Prof. Dr. Nora Kulak
Anorganische Chemie, Universität Potsdam

Copper instead of platinum: Metal-containing compounds for applications from medicine to catalysis

Prof. Eiichi Nakamura, University of Tokyo, Japan

Cinematic Chemistry: Electron Microscopic Way from Molecular Movie to Molecular Statistics