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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Sample preparation of membrane proteins suitable for solid-state MAS NMR and development of assignment strategies

Hiller, Matthias January 2009 (has links)
Although the basic structure of biological membranes is provided by the lipid bilayer, most of the specific functions are carried out by membrane proteins (MPs) such as channels, ion-pumps and receptors. Additionally, it is known, that mutations in MPs are directly or indirectly involved in many diseases. Thus, structure determination of MPs is of major interest not only in structural biology but also in pharmacology, especially for drug development. Advances in structural biology of membrane proteins (MPs) have been strongly supported by the success of three leading techniques: X-ray crystallography, electron microscopy and solution NMR spectroscopy. However, X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy, require highly diffracting 3D or 2D crystals, respectively. Today, structure determination of non-crystalline solid protein preparations has been made possible through rapid progress of solid-state MAS NMR methodology for biological systems. Castellani et. al. solved and refined the first structure of a microcrystalline protein using only solid-state MAS NMR spectroscopy. These successful application open up perspectives to access systems that are difficult to crystallise or that form large heterogeneous complexes and insoluble aggregates, for example ligands bound to a MP-receptor, protein fibrils and heterogeneous proteins aggregates. Solid-state MAS NMR spectroscopy is in principle well suited to study MP at atomic resolution. In this thesis, different types of MP preparations were tested for their suitability to be studied by solid-state MAS NMR. Proteoliposomes, poorly diffracting 2D crystals and a PEG precipitate of the outer membrane protein G (OmpG) were prepared as a model system for large MPs. Results from this work, combined with data found in the literature, show that highly diffracting crystalline material is not a prerequirement for structural analysis of MPs by solid-state MAS NMR. Instead, it is possible to use non-diffracting 3D crystals, MP precipitates, poorly diffracting 2D crystals and proteoliposomes. For the latter two types of preparations, the MP is reconstituted into a lipid bilayer, which thus allows the structural investigation in a quasi-native environment. In addition, to prepare a MP sample for solid-state MAS NMR it is possible to use screening methods, that are well established for 3D and 2D crystallisation of MPs. Hopefully, these findings will open a fourth method for structural investigation of MP. The prerequisite for structural studies by NMR in general, and the most time consuming step, is always the assignment of resonances to specific nuclei within the protein. Since the last few years an ever-increasing number of assignments from solid-state MAS NMR of uniformly carbon and nitrogen labelled samples is being reported, mostly for small proteins of up to around 150 amino acids in length. However, the complexity of the spectra increases with increasing molecular weight of the protein. Thus the conventional assignment strategies developed for small proteins do not yield a sufficiently high degree of assignment for the large MP OmpG (281 amino acids). Therefore, a new assignment strategy to find starting points for large MPs was devised. The assignment procedure is based on a sample with [2,3-13C, 15N]-labelled Tyr and Phe and uniformly labelled alanine and glycine. This labelling pattern reduces the spectral overlap as well as the number of assignment possibilities. In order to extend the assignment, four other specifically labelled OmpG samples were used. The assignment procedure starts with the identification of the spin systems of each labelled amino acid using 2D 13C-13C and 3D NCACX correlation experiments. In a second step, 2D and 3D NCOCX type experiments are used for the sequential assignment of the observed resonances to specific nuclei in the OmpG amino acid sequence. Additionally, it was shown in this work, that biosynthetically site directed labelled samples, which are normally used to observe long-range correlations, were helpful to confirm the assignment. Another approach to find assignment starting points in large protein systems, is the use of spectroscopic filtering techniques. A filtering block that selects methyl resonances was used to find further assignment starting points for OmpG. Combining all these techniques, it was possible to assign nearly 50 % of the observed signals to the OmpG sequence. Using this information, a prediction of the secondary structure elements of OmpG was possible. Most of the calculated motifs were in good aggreement with the crystal structures of OmpG. The approaches presented here should be applicable to a wide variety of MPs and MP-complexes and should thus open a new avenue for the structural biology of MPs. / Biologische Membranen bestehen hauptsächlich aus Lipiden, ihre Funktion wird jedoch vor allem durch die eingebetteten Membranproteine (z.B. Kanäle, Ionenpumpen und Rezeptoren) bestimmt. Mutationen in dieser Proteinklasse können zum Auftreten verschiedener Krankheitsbilder führen, weshalb die Untersuchung der dreidimensionalen Struktur von Membranproteinen nicht nur von strukturbiologischem, sondern auch von pharmakologischem Interesse ist. In den letzten Jahren wurde eine Methode, die Festkörper NMR Spektroskopie, für Strukturuntersuchungen an Proteinproben im festen Aggregatzustand entwickelt. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit drei verschiedenen Präparationsarten von Membranproteinen, die eine Aufnahme von hochaufgelösten Festkörper NMR Spektren erlauben. Als Modelsystem wurde das Protein G der äußeren Membrane (outer membrane protein G, OmpG) von Escherichia coli gewählt. Eine wichtige Vorraussetzung zur Berechnung der Proteinstruktur aus den NMR-Spektren, ist die Zuordnung der einzelnen Signale zur jeweiligen Aminosäure in der Proteinsequenz. In dieser Arbeit wurde eine Methode entwickelt, die das Auffinden von Startpunkten für die sequentielle Zuordnung in großen Membranproteinen, wie zum Bsp. OmpG (281 Aminosäuren), erlaubt. Multidimensionale NMR Experimente mit verschieden spezifisch markierten Proben wurden durchgeführt und ermöglichten die Zuordnung von 50 % der NMR Signale der OmpG Proteinsequenz. Zur Überprüfung der gewonnenen Daten wurden diese zur Vorhersage von Sekundärstrukturelementen genutzt. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die berechneten Strukturmotive in guter Übereinstimmung zu den bisher veröffentlichten OmpG Strukturen liegen. Die in dieser Arbeit angewendeten Methoden sollten auf eine Vielzahl anderer Membranprotein anwendbar und somit einen neuen Weg zur Strukturbiologischen Untersuchung von Membranproteinen eröffnen.
2

Exploring connectivity patterns in cancer proteins with machine learning / Utforskande av kopplingsmönster hos cancerproteiner med maskininlärning

Bergendal, Knut-Rasmus January 2021 (has links)
Proteins are among the most versatile organic macromolecules essential for living systems and present in almost all biological processes. Cancer is associated with mutations that either enhance or disrupt the conformation of proteins. These mutations have been shown to accumulate in specific regions of a proteins three dimensional structure. In this thesis, the aim is to find connections that secondary structure elements make and explore them using a self-organizing map (SOM). The detection of these connections is done by first mapping the three-dimensional structure onto a novice type of distance matrix that also incorporates chemical information, and then deploying a density-based clustering algorithm. The connections found are mapped onto the SOM and later analyzed in order to see if highly mutated connections are more common among certain SOM-nodes. This was tested with an ANOVA that indicated that there are indeed mutational asymmetries among the nodes. By further analyzing the map it could also be stated that certain nodes were to a large extent activated by connections from genes associated with cancer. / Proteiner tillhör några av de mest mångsidiga organiska makromolekylerna, och är direkt nödvändiga för alla levande system och biologiska processer. Cancer orsakas av mutationer som antingen förstärker eller stör strukturen hos proteinet. Dessa mutationer tenderar att att samlas i specifika områden av proteinets tredimensionella struktur. I den här rapporten är målet att hitta kopplingar som sekundärstrukturselement skapar, och utforska dem med hjälp av en självorganiserande karta. Dessa kopplingar finnes genom att först skapa en tvådimensionell representation av proteinets tredimensionella struktur, och sedan använda en densitetsbaserad klustringsalgoritm. De funna kopplingarna mappas till de olika neuronerna i kartan och analyseras sedan för att se om kopplingar med hög mutationsnivå är mer vanliga hos vissa neuron. För att undersöka detta användes ett ANOVA-test som visade att så var fallet. Genom att ytterligare studera kartan upptäcktes fynd som indikerade att vissa neuron i högre utsträckning var aktiverade av kopplingar som härstammar från gener vi vet är associerade med cancer.
3

DAHP Synthasen aus Pilzen / Evolution und Struktur unterschiedlich regulierter Isoenzyme / Fungal DAHP Synthases / Evolution and Structure of Differently Regulated Isoenzymes

Hartmann, Markus 29 January 2002 (has links)
No description available.
4

Untersuchung der Pathomechanismen hypertrophieassoziierter Mutationen im MYL3 Gen

Lossie, Janine 27 June 2012 (has links)
Myosin II, das Motorprotein des kardialen Muskels, besteht aus zwei schweren und vier leichten Ketten. Der Hebelarmbereich der schweren Myosinkette (MyHC) enthält das IQ-Konsensus-Motiv für die Bindung der essentiellen leichten Myosinkette (ELC), welche wesentlich für eine normale Kraftentwicklung des Myosinmoleküls ist. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden fünf, mit hypertropher Kardiomyopathie assoziierte, Mutationen im humanen essentiellen ventrikulären leichten Myosinketten (hVLC1)-Gen (MYL3) untersucht (E56G, A57G, E143K, M149V, R154H). Von keiner dieser Mutationen war der Pathomechanismus bekannt. Ziel der Arbeit war es, die Effekte der Mutationen im MYL3-Gen auf Proteinstruktur und Funktion zu untersuchen und daraufhin einen möglichen Pathomechanismus zu formulieren. Dazu erfolgten Strukturanalysen (CD-Spektren, Schmelzkurven, FLIM), Versuche auf Protein- und Zellebene (Protein-Protein-Interaktionsstudien, Sorting Assay) sowie Untersuchungen in vitro (Zell-Verkürzungsmessungen, isoliert perfundierte Herzen nach Langendorff) und in vivo (Echokardiographie) im transgenen Mausmodell. / Myosin II, the motor protein of cardiac muscle, is composed of two heavy chains (MyHC) and four non-covalently linked light chains (MLC). The lever arm of the MyHC contains the IQ motif that binds the essential myosin light chain (ELC), which is necessary for the normal force production of the myosin molecule. Five with HCM associated mutations in the human ventricular essential myosin light chain (hVLC1) -gen (MYL3) were investigated in this study (E56G, A57G, E143K, M149V, R154H). The pathomechanisms of the mutations were not known. Aim of the study was i) to test the hypothesis that mutations in the ventricular essential myosin light chain affect the protein structure, the binding to the IQ motif of MyHC and the force production of the myosin molecule as well as ii) to postulate an accompanying pathomechanism. Structural analyses (circular dichroism, melting curves, fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy), functional investigations (surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, sorting assay) and in vivo (echocardiography) and in vitro studies in a transgenic mouse model were performed.
5

Structure, Function and Dynamics of G-Protein coupled Receptors

Eichler, Stefanie 09 February 2012 (has links) (PDF)
Understanding the function of membrane proteins is crucial to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which transmembrane signaling based physiological processes,i. e., the interactions of extracellular ligands with membrane-bound receptors, are regulated. In this work, synthetic transmembrane segments derived from the visual photoreceptor rhodopsin, the full length system rhodopsin and mutants of opsin are used to study physical processes that underlie the function of this prototypical class-A G-protein coupled Receptor. The dependency of membrane protein hydration and protein-lipid interactions on side chain charge neutralization is addressed by fluorescence spectroscopy on synthetic transmembrane segments in detergent and lipidic environment constituting transmembrane segments of rhodopsin in the membrane. Results from spectroscopic studies allow us to construct a structural and thermodynamical model of coupled protonation of the conserved ERY motif in transmembrane helix 3 of rhodopsin and of helix restructuring in the micro-domain formed at the protein/lipid water phase boundary. Furthermore, synthesized peptides and full length systems were studied by time resolved FTIR-Fluorescence Cross Correlation Hydration Modulation, a technique specifically developed for the purpose of this study, to achieve a full prospect of time-resolved hydration effects on lipidic and proteinogenic groups, as well as their interactions. Multi-spectral experiments and time-dependent analyses based on 2D correlation where established to analyze large data sets obtained from time-resolved FTIR difference spectra and simultaneous static fluorescence recordings. The data reveal that lipids play a mediating role in transmitting hydration to the subsequent membrane protein response followed by water penetration into the receptor structure or into the sub-headgroup region in single membrane-spanning peptides carrying the conserved proton uptake site (monitored by the fluorescence emission of hydrophobic buried tryptophan). Our results support the assumption of the critical role of the lipid/water interface in membrane protein function and they prove in particular the important influence of electrostatics, i. e., side chain charges at the phase boundary, and hydration on that function. / Für die Aufklärung der molekularen Wirkungsweise von physiologischen, auf Signaltransduktion, d. h. dem Zusammenspiel von extrazellulären Reizen und membrangebundenen Rezeptoren, beruhenden Prozessen ist das Verständnis der Funktion von Membranproteinen unerlässlich. In dieser Arbeit werden von Rhodopsin abgleitete, synthetische transmembrane Segmentpeptide, Opsin-Mutanten und der vollständige Photorezeptor Rhodopsin untersucht, um die physikalischen Prozesse zu beleuchten, die der Funktionen dieses prototypischen Klasse-A G-Protein gekoppelten Rezeptors zugrunde liegen. Die Abhängigkeit der Membranprotein-Hydratation und der Lipid-Protein-Wechselwirkung von der Ladung einer Aminosäuren-Seitenkette wird erforscht. Hierzu werden synthetische, transmembrane Segmentpeptide in Lipid und Detergenz, als Modell transmembraner Segmente von Rhodopsin in der Membran mittels Fluoreszenzspektroskopie untersucht. Aus den erhaltenen Ergebnissen wird ein thermodynamisches und strukturelles Modell hergeleitet, welches die Kopplung der Protonierung des hochkonservierten ERY-Motivs in Transmembranhelix 3 von Rhodopsin an die Restrukturierung der Helix in der Mikroumgebung der Lipid-Wasser-Phasengrenze erklärt. Des Weiteren werden sowohl die Segementpeptide als auch die vollständigen Systeme Opsin und Rhodopsin mittels zeitaufgelöster FTIR-Fluoreszenz-Kreuzkorrelations-Hydratations-Modulation untersucht. Diese Technik wurde eigens zur Aufklärung von zeitabhängigen Hydratationseffekten auf Lipide und Proteine oder Peptide entwickelt. Dabei werden zeitaufgelöste FTIR Differenz-Spektren und gleichzeitig statische Fluoreszenzsignale aufgenommen und diese zeitabhängigen multispektralen Datensätze mittels 2D Korrelation analysiert. Die Auswertung der Experimente enthüllt einen sequentiellen Hydratationsprozess. Dieser beginnt mit der Bildung von Wasserstoffbrückenbindungen an der Carbonylgruppe des Lipids, gefolgt von Strukturänderungen der Transmembranproteine und abgeschlossen durch das Eindringen von Wasser in das Proteininnere. Letzteres wird nachgewiesen durch die Fluoreszenz von Tryptophan im hydrophoben Peptid- oder Proteininneren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit unterstreichen die Annahme, dass Lipid-Protein-Wechselwirkungen eine entscheidende Rolle in der Funktion von Membranproteinen spielen und das insbesondere Elektrostatik, in Form von Ladungen an der Phasengrenze, und die Hydratisierung einen kritischen Einfluss auf diese Funktion haben.
6

Understanding the Structural and Functional Importance of Early Folding Residues in Protein Structures

Bittrich, Sebastian 14 February 2019 (has links)
Proteins adopt three-dimensional structures which serve as a starting point to understand protein function and their evolutionary ancestry. It is unclear how proteins fold in vivo and how this process can be recreated in silico in order to predict protein structure from sequence. Contact maps are a possibility to describe whether two residues are in spatial proximity and structures can be derived from this simplified representation. Coevolution or supervised machine learning techniques can compute contact maps from sequence: however, these approaches only predict sparse subsets of the actual contact map. It is shown that the composition of these subsets substantially influences the achievable reconstruction quality because most information in a contact map is redundant. No strategy was proposed which identifies unique contacts for which no redundant backup exists. The StructureDistiller algorithm quantifies the structural relevance of individual contacts and identifies crucial contacts in protein structures. It is demonstrated that using this information the reconstruction performance on a sparse subset of a contact map is increased by 0.4 A, which constitutes a substantial performance gain. The set of the most relevant contacts in a map is also more resilient to false positively predicted contacts: up to 6% of false positives are compensated before reconstruction quality matches a naive selection of contacts without any false positive contacts. This information is invaluable for the training to new structure prediction methods and provides insights into how robustness and information content of contact maps can be improved. In literature, the relevance of two types of residues for in vivo folding has been described. Early folding residues initiate the folding process, whereas highly stable residues prevent spontaneous unfolding events. The structural relevance score proposed by this thesis is employed to characterize both types of residues. Early folding residues form pivotal secondary structure elements, but their structural relevance is average. In contrast, highly stable residues exhibit significantly increased structural relevance. This implies that residues crucial for the folding process are not relevant for structural integrity and vice versa. The position of early folding residues is preserved over the course of evolution as demonstrated for two ancient regions shared by all aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. One arrangement of folding initiation sites resembles an ancient and widely distributed structural packing motif and captures how reverberations of the earliest periods of life can still be observed in contemporary protein structures.
7

Imaging of the Cytosolic Antibody Receptor TRIM21 / Avbildning av den cytosoliska antikroppsreceptorn TRIM21

Stefánsdóttir, Þórunn January 2022 (has links)
TRIM21 is a cytosolic ubiquitin ligase and an antibody receptor that providesa last line of defense against invading pathogens. By utilizing the diversity ofantibody repertoire to identify pathogens, TRIM21 serves as a link betweenintrinsic cellular defense and adaptive immunity. A variety of diseases havebeen linked to mutations of the TRIM family, including cancer, inflammatorydiseases, and autoimmune diseases. In this project, TRIM21 was producedand purified from Escherichia coli, (E.coli). Protein characterization wasperformed with SDS-PAGE, size exclusion chromatography and cryo-electronmicroscopy (cryo-EM). Previously TRIM21 has been shown to form a dimerwhen produced in SF9. Results from size exclusion chromatography show thatTRIM21 form a larger complex when expressed in E.coli. Cryo-EM resultsshow that the complex structure is more globular than previously thought.Purified TRIM21 was bound to the antibody IC100. SDS-PAGE and sizeexclusion chromatography results show much lower affinity to antibodies thanexpected. / TRIM21 är en cytosolisk ubiquitinligas- och antikroppsreceptor som ger ensista försvarslinje mot invaderande virus. Genom att använda mångfalden avantikroppsrepertoar för att identifiera patogener, fungerar TRIM21 som enlänk mellan inre cellulärt försvar och adaptiv immunitet. En mängd olikasjukdomar har kopplats till mutationer i TRIM-familjen, inklusive cancer,inflammatoriska sjukdomar och autoimmuna sjukdomar. I detta projekt produceradesoch renades TRIM21 från Escherichia coli, (E.coli). Proteinkarakteriseringutfördes med SDS-PAGE, gelfiltreringskromatografi och kryo-elektronmikroskopi(cryo-EM). Tidigare har TRIM21 visat sig bilda en dimer när den producerasi SF9. Resultat från gelfiltrering visar att TRIM21 bildar ett större komplexnär det uttrycks i E.coli. Cryo-EM-resultat visar att den komplexa strukturenär mer klotformig än man tidigare trott. Renad TRIM21 bands till antikroppenIC100. SDS-PAGE och gel-filtrerings resultat visar mycket lägre affinitet tillantikroppar än förväntat.
8

Applicability of a computational design approach for synthetic riboswitches

Domin, Gesine, Findeiß, Sven, Wachsmuth, Manja, Will, Sebastian, Stadler, Peter F., Mörl, Mario 25 January 2017 (has links) (PDF)
Riboswitches have gained attention as tools for synthetic biology, since they enable researchers to reprogram cells to sense and respond to exogenous molecules. In vitro evolutionary approaches produced numerous RNA aptamers that bind such small ligands, but their conversion into functional riboswitches remains difficult. We previously developed a computational approach for the design of synthetic theophylline riboswitches based on secondary structure prediction. These riboswitches have been constructed to regulate ligand dependent transcription termination in Escherichia coli. Here, we test the usability of this design strategy by applying the approach to tetracycline and streptomycin aptamers. The resulting tetracycline riboswitches exhibit robust regulatory properties in vivo. Tandem fusions of these riboswitches with theophylline riboswitches represent logic gates responding to two different input signals. In contrast, the conversion of the streptomycin aptamer into functional riboswitches appears to be difficult. Investigations of the underlying aptamer secondary structure revealed differences between in silico prediction and structure probing. We conclude that only aptamers adopting the minimal free energy (MFE) structure are suitable targets for construction of synthetic riboswitches with design approaches based on equilibrium thermodynamics of RNA structures. Further improvements in the design strategy are required to implement aptamer structures not corresponding to the calculated MFE state.
9

Applicability of a computational design approach for synthetic riboswitches

Domin, Gesine, Findeiß, Sven, Wachsmuth, Manja, Will, Sebastian, Stadler, Peter F., Mörl, Mario January 2016 (has links)
Riboswitches have gained attention as tools for synthetic biology, since they enable researchers to reprogram cells to sense and respond to exogenous molecules. In vitro evolutionary approaches produced numerous RNA aptamers that bind such small ligands, but their conversion into functional riboswitches remains difficult. We previously developed a computational approach for the design of synthetic theophylline riboswitches based on secondary structure prediction. These riboswitches have been constructed to regulate ligand dependent transcription termination in Escherichia coli. Here, we test the usability of this design strategy by applying the approach to tetracycline and streptomycin aptamers. The resulting tetracycline riboswitches exhibit robust regulatory properties in vivo. Tandem fusions of these riboswitches with theophylline riboswitches represent logic gates responding to two different input signals. In contrast, the conversion of the streptomycin aptamer into functional riboswitches appears to be difficult. Investigations of the underlying aptamer secondary structure revealed differences between in silico prediction and structure probing. We conclude that only aptamers adopting the minimal free energy (MFE) structure are suitable targets for construction of synthetic riboswitches with design approaches based on equilibrium thermodynamics of RNA structures. Further improvements in the design strategy are required to implement aptamer structures not corresponding to the calculated MFE state.
10

Structure, Function and Dynamics of G-Protein coupled Receptors

Eichler, Stefanie 26 January 2012 (has links)
Understanding the function of membrane proteins is crucial to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which transmembrane signaling based physiological processes,i. e., the interactions of extracellular ligands with membrane-bound receptors, are regulated. In this work, synthetic transmembrane segments derived from the visual photoreceptor rhodopsin, the full length system rhodopsin and mutants of opsin are used to study physical processes that underlie the function of this prototypical class-A G-protein coupled Receptor. The dependency of membrane protein hydration and protein-lipid interactions on side chain charge neutralization is addressed by fluorescence spectroscopy on synthetic transmembrane segments in detergent and lipidic environment constituting transmembrane segments of rhodopsin in the membrane. Results from spectroscopic studies allow us to construct a structural and thermodynamical model of coupled protonation of the conserved ERY motif in transmembrane helix 3 of rhodopsin and of helix restructuring in the micro-domain formed at the protein/lipid water phase boundary. Furthermore, synthesized peptides and full length systems were studied by time resolved FTIR-Fluorescence Cross Correlation Hydration Modulation, a technique specifically developed for the purpose of this study, to achieve a full prospect of time-resolved hydration effects on lipidic and proteinogenic groups, as well as their interactions. Multi-spectral experiments and time-dependent analyses based on 2D correlation where established to analyze large data sets obtained from time-resolved FTIR difference spectra and simultaneous static fluorescence recordings. The data reveal that lipids play a mediating role in transmitting hydration to the subsequent membrane protein response followed by water penetration into the receptor structure or into the sub-headgroup region in single membrane-spanning peptides carrying the conserved proton uptake site (monitored by the fluorescence emission of hydrophobic buried tryptophan). Our results support the assumption of the critical role of the lipid/water interface in membrane protein function and they prove in particular the important influence of electrostatics, i. e., side chain charges at the phase boundary, and hydration on that function. / Für die Aufklärung der molekularen Wirkungsweise von physiologischen, auf Signaltransduktion, d. h. dem Zusammenspiel von extrazellulären Reizen und membrangebundenen Rezeptoren, beruhenden Prozessen ist das Verständnis der Funktion von Membranproteinen unerlässlich. In dieser Arbeit werden von Rhodopsin abgleitete, synthetische transmembrane Segmentpeptide, Opsin-Mutanten und der vollständige Photorezeptor Rhodopsin untersucht, um die physikalischen Prozesse zu beleuchten, die der Funktionen dieses prototypischen Klasse-A G-Protein gekoppelten Rezeptors zugrunde liegen. Die Abhängigkeit der Membranprotein-Hydratation und der Lipid-Protein-Wechselwirkung von der Ladung einer Aminosäuren-Seitenkette wird erforscht. Hierzu werden synthetische, transmembrane Segmentpeptide in Lipid und Detergenz, als Modell transmembraner Segmente von Rhodopsin in der Membran mittels Fluoreszenzspektroskopie untersucht. Aus den erhaltenen Ergebnissen wird ein thermodynamisches und strukturelles Modell hergeleitet, welches die Kopplung der Protonierung des hochkonservierten ERY-Motivs in Transmembranhelix 3 von Rhodopsin an die Restrukturierung der Helix in der Mikroumgebung der Lipid-Wasser-Phasengrenze erklärt. Des Weiteren werden sowohl die Segementpeptide als auch die vollständigen Systeme Opsin und Rhodopsin mittels zeitaufgelöster FTIR-Fluoreszenz-Kreuzkorrelations-Hydratations-Modulation untersucht. Diese Technik wurde eigens zur Aufklärung von zeitabhängigen Hydratationseffekten auf Lipide und Proteine oder Peptide entwickelt. Dabei werden zeitaufgelöste FTIR Differenz-Spektren und gleichzeitig statische Fluoreszenzsignale aufgenommen und diese zeitabhängigen multispektralen Datensätze mittels 2D Korrelation analysiert. Die Auswertung der Experimente enthüllt einen sequentiellen Hydratationsprozess. Dieser beginnt mit der Bildung von Wasserstoffbrückenbindungen an der Carbonylgruppe des Lipids, gefolgt von Strukturänderungen der Transmembranproteine und abgeschlossen durch das Eindringen von Wasser in das Proteininnere. Letzteres wird nachgewiesen durch die Fluoreszenz von Tryptophan im hydrophoben Peptid- oder Proteininneren. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit unterstreichen die Annahme, dass Lipid-Protein-Wechselwirkungen eine entscheidende Rolle in der Funktion von Membranproteinen spielen und das insbesondere Elektrostatik, in Form von Ladungen an der Phasengrenze, und die Hydratisierung einen kritischen Einfluss auf diese Funktion haben.

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