Regensburg 2004 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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SYLS: Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology

SYLS 4: Symposium "Life Sciences on the Nanometer Scale - Physics Meets Biology"

SYLS 4.4: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 11. März 2004, 10:30–10:45, H 37

Photomodulation of conformational states — •Christian Renner, Alexander Milbradt, Markus Schütt, Raymond Behrend, Simone Krupka, Eva-Karthin Sinner, Ciara Cabrele, and Luis Moroder — Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie

Every living cell, be it bacterial or human, contains a variety of proteins that turn the static information encoded in the genes into the densely packed activity of life. Although protein functions are built on well-known fundamental physical laws the sheer complexity of such macromolecules due to their size and variability renders experimental as well as theoretical investigations a difficult challenge. A productive and helpful approach has been the reduction to simpler albeit artificial model systems. We have constructed peptide models that combine small functional protein fragments of a few amino acid residues with a light-switch allowing for photomodulation of properties like spatial structure, redox potential or affinity for ligands. The light induced changes could be exploited for a limited photo-control of peptide structure (1), protein binding (2) and oxidative protein refolding (3). The consequences observed upon applying well-defined changes to the system through the photoisomerization process should allow for a better understanding of the functional protein parts that are contained in our model systems.
(1) Biopolymers 63 (2002), 382-393.; (2) Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 41 (2002), 289-292.; (3) Chem. Biol. 10, 487-490.