Research
Although the research in chemistry, biology and pharmacology is moving towards new horizons targeting complex biological systems, structural and dynamical views on individual proteins, key-players in biological pathways, is still a major challenge in structural biology. A prerequisite for the prediction and understanding of the biological outcome at the molecular level is the detailed study of protein architecture, dynamics and the specificity of protein-protein/substrate assembly and socialization along with the investigation of the impact of disease-related modifications on proteins’ properties.
The group research efforts encompass the in silico and in vitro…
Structural characterization of Protein Architecture and Peptide Conformation to study and understand the way that a biopolymer folds into an ordered structure,
Investigation of Protein-Protein Interaction and Socialization to identify structure lterations that these systems undergo during its co-existence with other biomolecules,
Illumination of Proteins and Protein Complexes dynamics since function needs action,
Perturbation of Proteins and Protein Complexes by mapping disease mutations to extrapolate the mutant-protein-effect relationships,
Modelling, simulation of Protein-ligand/substrate and Drug interactions to elucidate the conformational dynamics of complex 3D structures and
Design new Protein/Peptide analogues for (bio)synthesis, combinatorial chemical libraries for virtual screening and for organic synthesis.
The aim is to correlate all these elements in a Structure-Function relation.
To achieve these goals the group activities are put in the following Research Axes:
- Protein Expression
- NMR Studies
- Biomolecular Simulations
The Specific Research Targets of the group include a broad spectrum of biomolecules, such as proteins, metalloproteins or metalloenzymes with diamagnetic or paramagnetic metal centers, peptides, and bioactive peptide-like or small organic molecules which have been already studied or are under investigation. The biomolecular targets that are currently at the center of the group’s research activities can be categorized as follows:
- Zinc Metalloproteases – Conformational Dynamics and Substrate Selectivity
- E3 Ubiquitin Ligases – Structure Determination and Protein Socialization in Ubiquitination Pathway
- Ion channels – Structure and Dynamics of Ligand-gated ion channels (LGIC) and Potassium Channels
- Heme & Copper proteins – NO-signaling, Electron transfer and Copper transport
- Synthetic Peptides – Conformational studies and SAR
– G-protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) ligands
– Peptide epitopes
