Protein Chemistry

Aim

The objectives of the course is to provide comprehensive knowledge in the following areas: Protein chemistry, protein engineering, structure and function relationships, physicochemical properties of proteins and methodologies for characterization of proteins. After studies well learned the student will have proficiency to:

• Identify structure motifs and from this draw conclusions regarding the structure and function of proteins.
• Search for information from various data bases to visualize protein structures and compare amino acid sequences.
• Draw conclusions about protein dynamics, structure and function from detailed chemical and physical properties.
• Comprehend the fundamental mechanisms of protein folding and to have a deeper understanding of the factors determining the stability of a protein.
• Define scientific problems within this area that can be tackled and solved by experiments.
• Adopt a reflecting, scientific attitude to the theories and obtained experimental results.
• Work in a group in a project-oriented way in the laboratory.

Content

Theoretical part: Different structure motifs of proteins. Multifunctional enzymes, membrane proteins, prediction of protein structures. Studies of physico-chemical properties of proteins and methodology for studies of these properties: Chemical characteristics of polypeptides, protein engineering, physical interactions determining the properties of proteins, role of hydrophobic interaction, conformation flexibility, protein stability, mechanisms of protein folding, interaction with other proteins, enzyme catalysis. Project part: Studies of physico-chemical properties of proteins and methodology for studies of these properties. Methodology used for these studies is biophysical methods such as fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD) and calorimetry (ITC). Sequence analysis and structure modeling are used for result analysis.