Title: "Probing Protein Motions for Sequence Fidelity Control and Information Detection along DNA."
Speaker: Jin Yu, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California
Abstract:
In template-based polymerization or transcription elongation, fidelity is mainly controlled by RNA polymerase (RNAP) selectivity on nucleotides. Although it is understood that RNAP operates in nonequilibrium for nucleotide addition or elongation to improve accuracy, it is not clear how it communicates with DNA template to assist cognate nucleotide incorporation. Dr. Yu's team have combined kinetic modeling with all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to show most critical residue motions supporting the nucleotide "recognition" and selectivity, from phage T7 to SARSCoV2 viral replication. The atomistic MD simulations are particularly useful in demonstrating hydrogen bonding (HB) interaction at the protein-DNA interface to detect DNA sequence information. The rate-limiting collective HB dynamics has been revealed in their recent work showing spontaneous stepping of a transcription factor (TF) protein along DNA.
This meeting is free and open to the public. Attend in person at 3269 Beckman Institute.
The event will take place at 3:00 p.m. on March 21.
