Chemistry Seminar Presented by Prof. Casey Londergan: "Protein Dynamics via Vibrational Probe Groups: Untangling the Conformational Distribution"

The Department of Chemistry is excited to host Casey Londergan (Haverford) Protein Dynamics via Vibrational Probe Groups: Untangling the Conformational Distribution Proteins' natural functions are tied up in their dynamic motions, which are often not directly reported by conventional structural biology techniques. Vibrational spectroscopy (IR absorption and Raman scattering) can provide signals with intrinsic time resolution that enables reporting on all of a protein's dynamically interchanging structures, and a variety of probe groups have been developed to work around the problem of spectral congestion in biomolecular vibrational spectra. These probe groups, which are often located on artificial amino acid side chains, tend to have different reporting abilities, signal strengths, and methods of incorporation so there is not a "one size fits all" solution to their application. In this talk I will focus on the application of two different functional group vibrations to better understanding dynamic, functional structural changes, note complementary methods to verify that these groups have not perturbed their host proteins, and introduce a path forward towards using vibrational probes to determine dynamic conformational ensembles by combining MD simulations, vibrational frequency calculations, and experimental results. To learn more about Prof. Londergan's work, please visit: https://www.haverford.edu/users/clonderg Hosted by Kat Haas