Friday, September 6, 2024 12:00 Noon Room 120 – Meyerhoff Chemistry Building Host: Dr. Aaron Smith
MicroED solution to the lens MP20 enigma
My laboratory studies the structures of membrane proteins that are important in maintaining homeostasis in the brain. Understanding structure (and hence function) requires scientists to build an atomic resolution map of every atom in the protein of interest, that is, an atomic structural model of the protein of interest captured in various functional states. In 2013 we unveiled the method Microcrystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED) and demonstrated that it is feasible to determine high-resolution protein structures by electron crystallography of three-dimensional crystals in an electron cryo-microscope (CryoEM). The CryoEM is used in diffraction mode for structural analysis of proteins of interest using vanishingly small crystals. In this seminar I will describe our efforts in the MicroED field and illustrate how this technique allows us to determine structures for novel proteins that were beyond the reach of other methods. I will use the small membrane protein MP20 from the eye lens as a case study and reveal an unexpected role for this protein as a tight junction protein.
