CIBIO-PhD Colloquia 2016 - Neri Niccolai

PhD Colloquia 2016

a forum between young researchers and scientists

This is a mini series of 6 seminars given by top experts in different fields covering almost all the area of the PhD program. Each colloquium is a friendly forum where students can learn how to communicate and critically evaluate science. Additionally, it is an opportunity to discuss ongoing research in an informal atmosphere and obtain valuable feedbacks from the experts.
PhD Colloquia bring together young scientists, senior scientists and students in a colloquial setting, encouraging interactions and exchanges of ideas.

The first seminar will take place on 15 February at 5 pm in the room B102 of the Polo Ferraris at Povo2.

Invited speaker:  Neri Niccolai  (University of Siena)

Title: "From the Protein Data Bank to the molecular basis of Life".

Abstract:

In the post-genomic era Bioinformatics is rapidly growing as a fundamental branch of biological research due to the deluge of data arriving from omics investigations. Nucleic aicds and protein sequences have been the most popular targets of Bioinformatics, even though structural knowledge of biopolymers is getting large enough to start with some 3D pattern search. The development of a new tool for assigning individual atom dephts in complex atom assembly gave us the opportunity to explore the Protein Data Bank with different perspectives.
Thus, amino acids content of protein structural layers revealed that Lys and Glu are, by far, the most abundant and often contiguous residues in protein protruding moietis. We have proposed that proximity of opposite charges form Lys and Glu side chains, rapidly reorienting on the protein surface, could be the basis for long distance protein-protein interactions. Protein-nucleic acids and protein-protein interactions have been also analyzed in terms of amino acid contents of their interfaces. The fact that Arg is the most abundant amino acid at protein-nucleic acids interfaces of DNA and RNA protein complexes present in the Protein Data Bank well explains the reason why this amino acid, in spite of a relatively low abundance in proteins, can count on six different codons from the standard genetic code.

Next seminar on 17 March. Speaker: Jules Griffin. 

Initiative organized by the 29th Cycle PhD students of the PhD Program in Biomolecular Sciences