In this weekly seminar series, Tanja Mittag, Member of the Structural Biology Department Faculty, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, will present a one-hour talk titled:
Concepts in phase separation – from sequence-encoded driving forces to material properties
ABSTRACT Phase transitions underlie cellularcompartmentalization and mediate fundamental biologicalprocesses. How the driving force for phase separation is encodedin the protein sequence is therefore an important question. Here,we use biophysical experiments, theory, and simulations togenerate a conceptual stickers-and-spacers framework tounderstand phase behavior of intrinsically disordered prion-likelow-complexity domains (PLCDs) of RNA-binding proteins.Stickers form non-covalent inter-and intramolecular crosslinks,whereas spacers enable or suppress the formation of thesecrosslinks. We have previously shown that aromatic residues arethe stickers in the PLCD of hnRNPA1. Here, we demonstrate thatsticker residues mediate networking and spacer residues influencephase separation through their effective solvation volume. Ouranalytical and coarse-grained models accurately predict PLCDphase behavior. Based on the resulting stickers-and-spacersmodel, we can think of condensates as network fluids. We areextending our stickers-and-spacers framework to understandmaterial properties of condensates and how their aging processes,which have been linked to neurodegenerative diseases, areinfluenced by network structure and interfaces.
This seminar will be presented in the ASRC Auditorium and broadcast via Zoom, with snacks and refreshments to start at 11:30am in the cafe.
To join these ongoing events via Zoom, please use the link below:
Meeting ID: 968 3104 2138
Passcode: ASRC-CDI
For more information about this hybrid event please contact:
Hyacinth Camillieri