The scientific module “Expression and Preparation of GPCRs” will take place October 5-7, 2020.

A detailed program will follow soon – Topics include:

• protein production of extracellular domains in HEK293 cells and protein quality control
• protein glycosylation and its control in HEK293 cell expression
• E.coli expression
• cell free expression
• functional reconstitution in lipid membranes
• Sf9/Hi5 expression of GPCRs and G-proteins
• solubilization and purification
• sample preparation for X-ray crystallography or Cryo-EM
• and more

Participating Project Leaders :
Prof. Dr. Norbert Sträter // Dr. Peter Schmidt // Dr. Patrick Scheerer

Registration
Please send an E-Mail to .

Diego del Alamo
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, on September 22nd, 4 p.m. CEST (16:00 Uhr Leipzig).

“Making the most of sparse data: Modeling the glutamate-GABA antiporter using double electron-electron resonance spectroscopy data”

The glutamate-GABA antiporter GadC is a 52 kDa membrane transporter protein that contributes to acid resistance in pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes and Shigella flexneri. Because the only published structure was determined crystallographically under conditions where it is inactive, the low-pH active conformation remains unknown. The study of this protein is challenged by the fact that its size precludes either traditional solution-state NMR or cryo-EM. I therefore used double electron-electron resonance (DEER) spectroscopy to monitor the protein at both high and low pH. These distance distributions, measured in lipid nanodiscs, suggest that GadC does not sample the conformation that was crystallographically resolved. Although I wanted to generate a structural model of GadC at both high and low pH, the sparseness of the data (approximately one restraint per twenty residues) presented a challenge that could only be addressed with novel sampling and scoring methods. In this presentation I will discuss these methods and how they could allow researchers to more effectively leverage sparse distance data collected using DEER to model conformational changes in integral membrane proteins. The sampling strategy I developed combines six-dimensional rigid-body transformations of secondary structural elements with fragment insertion, while the improvements in scoring focused on developing more realistic and statistically sound scoring functions. Both methods have the potential to widen the range and improve the accuracy of conformational changes that can be modeled using DEER spectroscopy.

Join via Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/707142249?pwd=WnQ1VnIwQ254YTFnaVY2QXdKRFpoUT09

Meeting-ID: 707 142 249 // Kenncode: 439414

This year´s Summer School will take place virtually (> proposed program).

Workshops

• Prof. Dr. Daniel Huster (Good Scientific Practice)
• Dr. Carsten Rohr (Presentation – Efficiency – Writing)

Guest – Speaker

• Dr. Martha Sommer (Institute of Medical Physics and Biophysics, Charité Berlin, My twenty years’ obsession with arrestin-GPCR interactions
• Dr. Lars Baumann (Bayer AG, Research & Development, Pharmaceuticals, Lab head “Peptide Drug Innovations”) 

Syllabus – CPBP 8330 – Special Topics in Protein Biochemistry
COMPUTATIONAL METHODS TO STUDY PROTEIN STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS

Date and Time:
The class will meet on 6 days in the weeks of August 10th and August 17th always 9:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. MWF. The laboratory portion will proceed on the same dates 1:00-4:00 p.m. The laboratory portion on August 7th is to sort out computational issues prior to the start of the course. Additionally, relevant, recent literature will be assigned for reading. This is a one credit course.
*Times subject to change due to remote-style teaching

Room:
Virtually via Zoom.

Registration:
Students who wish to take the class for credit should register as soon as possible! Students, postdocs, and faculty who wish to audit the class are welcome. Please send a note to Jens Meiler ().

Grading:
There will be a multiple choice exam (50%) at the end of the course and the laboratory portion will be graded (50%).

The next online PhD-Meeting will take place on Wednesday, July 22 at 3 PM. Victoria Most will give a talk about her research project.

Dr. Nadine Utz
German BioImaging – Society for Microscopy and Image Analysis, c/o Universität Konstanz

Microscopy data: challenges of research data management and first approaches

Agenda

• Research data management at the local level: high fluctuation of staff –> Locatability and allocation of research data often not given
• FAIR data principle: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable
• Comparison with other technologies: e.g. Protein Data Bank, UniProt
• Complexity of microscopy data and definition of meta data
• National and international efforts in the field of Image Data Management

Location  Online-Talk via Zoom

Registration  Please send an Email to . 

The meeting will take place on Thursday, February 27^th, 10-12 AM at Leipzig University, Faculty of Life Sciences, Seminar room SR111/112, Talstraße 33, 04103 Leipzig.

Dr. Davide Sala
Fondazione Sacconi, Milan, Italy

Computational investigation of (metallo) proteins structure and dynamics

Abstract

Proteins that require one or more metal ions to perform their biochemical function are called metalloproteins. To date, metalloproteins are estimated to be one-third of all proteins in most of the organisms and are involved in many fundamental biochemical processes. In this regard, the large diffusion of powerful and cost-effective GPGPU units has allowed the computational exploration of a number of biological processes using techniques based on molecular dynamics (MD). Thus, computational methods as MD can be exploited to investigate metalloproteins structural properties and the role of metal ions in their dynamics.

Location:
Institut für Biophysik
Härtelstraße 16 – 22, Seminarraum 017, erreichbar über den Hofeingang