Publications related to From Sequence to Dynamics to Function: Computational Design of Allostery and Ligand Selectivity in G-Protein Coupled Receptors

Opportunities and challenges in design and optimization of protein function

Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Casper Alexander Goverde

The field of protein design has made remarkable progress over the past decade. Historically, the low reliability of purely structure-based design methods limited their application, but recent strategies that combine structure-based and sequence-based calcu ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Antibodies expand the scope of angiotensin receptor pharmacology

Patrick Daniel Barth, Shuhao Zhang

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are key regulators of human physiology and are the targets of many small-molecule research compounds and therapeutic drugs. While most of these ligands bind to their target GPCR with high affinity, selectivity is often l ...

2024

Investigating the intra-molecular and inter-molecular effects of post-translational modifications on intrinsically disordered protein regions and structured protein regions

Zhidian Zhang

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play a pivotal role in regulating protein structure, interaction, and function. Aberrant PTM patterns are associated with diseases. Moreover, individual PTMs have a complex interaction with each other, known as PTM c ...

EPFL2024

Engineering novel protein interactions with therapeutic potential using deep learning-guided surface design

Anthony Marchand

Proteins are foundational biomolecules of life playing a crucial role in a myriad of biological processes. Their function often requires interplay with other biomolecules, including proteins themselves. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for ...

EPFL2024

Predicting protein interactions using geometric deep learning on protein surfaces

Freyr Sverrisson

In the domain of computational structural biology, predicting protein interactions based on molecular structure remains a pivotal challenge. This thesis delves into this challenge through a series of interconnected studies. The first chapter introduces th ...

EPFL2024

Computational drug development for membrane protein targets

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Pierre Vogel, Shuguang Yuan, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo

The application of computational biology in drug development for membrane protein targets has experienced a boost from recent developments in deep learning-driven structure prediction, increased speed and resolution of structure elucidation, machine learni ...

2024

Recording physiological history of cells with chemical labeling

Kai Johnsson, Julien Hiblot, Ling Hai

Recordings of the physiological history of cells provide insights into biological processes, yet obtaining such recordings is a challenge. To address this, we introduce a method to record transient cellular events for later analysis. We designed proteins t ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2024

Development of tools and methods for protein identification: From single molecules to in vivo applications

Salome Riccarda Püntener

As the fundamental machinery orchestrating cellular functions, proteins influence the state of every cell profoundly. As cells exhibit significant variations from one to another, analyzing the proteome on a single-cell level is imperative to unravel their ...

EPFL2024

Microsecond Time-Resolved Cryo-Electron Microscopy

Oliver Florian Harder

Recently, single-particle cryo-electron microscopy emerged as a technique capable of determining protein structures at near-atomic resolution and resolving protein dynamics with a temporal resolution ranging from second to milliseconds. This thesis describ ...

EPFL2024

Prolamins' 3D structure: A new insight into protein modeling using the language of numbers and shapes

Niloufar Sharif

This study combined protein modeling methods to generate the prolamins' fractions as precise as possible. Hence, gliadins, zeins, kafirins, hordeins, secalins, avenins and oryzins were generated based on their characteristics and disulfide mapping. Finding ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2024

Synergetic Support of Cartilage Homeostasis via Coupled Thermal-Hydrostatic Pressure Stimuli

Yanheng Guo

Cartilage homeostasis, crucial for musculoskeletal function, is orchestrated by interconnected biophysical cues. In healthy cartilage, repetitive compressive loading not only elicits a range of mechanical stimuli but also induces a gradual transient temper ...

EPFL2024

Structural heterogeneity of the ion and lipid channel TMEM16F

Horst Vogel

Transmembrane protein 16 F (TMEM16F) is a Ca2+-activated homodimer which functions as an ion channel and a phospholipid scramblase. Despite the availability of several TMEM16F cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures, the mechanism of activation ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Mechanisms and functions of protein S-acylation

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Laurence Gouzi Abrami, Francisco De Magalhães Sarmento R De Mesquita

Over the past two decades, protein S-acylation (often referred to as S-palmitoylation) has emerged as an important regulator of vital signalling pathways. S-Acylation is a reversible post-translational modification that involves the attachment of a fatty a ...

Nature Portfolio2024

HaloTag-Based Tools for Live-Cell Imaging and Elucidation of Organellar Redox Biology

Sarah Emmert

Redox homeostasis is a key factor in maintaining cellular function and health. The main determinant of the intracellular redox potential is ubiquitous glutathione (GSH) together with its oxidized dimer (GSSG). Importantly, both redox equilibrium and GSH ho ...

EPFL2024

Microsecond time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy

Ulrich Lorenz

Microsecond time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy has emerged as a novel approach for directly observing protein dynamics. By providing microsecond temporal and near-atomic spatial resolution, it has the potential to elucidate a wide range of dynamics tha ...

2024

Machine learning-aided generative molecular design

Philippe Schwaller, Jeff Guo

Machine learning has provided a means to accelerate early-stage drug discovery by combining molecule generation and filtering steps in a single architecture that leverages the experience and design preferences of medicinal chemists. However, designing mach ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Towards improving full-length ribosome density prediction by bridging sequence and graph-based representations

Felix Naef, Pierre Vandergheynst, Cédric Gobet, Mohan Vamsi Nallapareddy, Francesco Craighero

Translation elongation plays an important role in regulating protein concentrations in the cell, and dysregulation of this process has been linked to several human diseases. In this study, we use data from ribo-seq experiments to model ribosome densities, ...

PMLR2024

Advancing Cell-Free Synthetic Biology: From sustained PURE protein synthesis to an isothermal one-pot DNA replication system

Laura Sophie Grasemann

One of the goals of synthetic biology is the development of an artificial cell. Building an artificial cell from scratch will provide a deeper understanding of fundamental mechanisms and models in biology and promises to contribute towards building novel p ...

EPFL2024

Ion Spectroscopy Reveals Structural Difference for Proteins Microhydrated by Retention and Condensation of Water

Oleg Boyarkine, Andrei Zviagin

Protein ubiquitin in its +7 charge state microhydrated by 5 and 10 water molecules has been interrogated in the gas phase by cold ion UV/IR spectroscopy. The complexes were formed either by condensing water onto the unfolded bare proteins in a temperature- ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Ru(II)-Arene Complexes of Curcumin and Bisdesmethoxycurcumin Metabolites

Paul Joseph Dyson, Farzaneh Fadaei Tirani, Mouna Hadiji

Curcuminoids and their complexes continue to attract attention in medicinal chemistry, but little attention has been given to their metabolic derivatives. Here, the first examples of (arene)Ru(II) complexes with curcuminoid metabolites, tetrahydrocurcumin ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024