Birthe Brandt Kragelund, Professor, Department of Biology, Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory REPIN and Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, will give a seminar on "Disordered protein complexes – a rethinking of molecular communication?"

ABSTRACT

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) (or –regions (IDRs)) are functional while existing in broad ensembles of near iso-energetic conformations. Despite their lack of tertiary structure, IDPs are involved in communication with other molecules forming associations ranging from binary, discrete complexes to large multicomponent assemblies. Due to their dynamic nature, IDPs expand the types of association possible, further enabling functional regulations by very different mechanisms. The fast dynamics characteristic of IDPs may persist in their complexes and the degrees of disorder within the complex can therefore vary greatly. We have been exploring the functional role of disorder in a diverse set of proteins ranging from small soluble IDPs to large IDRs in membrane proteins, combining NMR spectroscopy with other biophysical methods as SAXS, neutron diffraction, and computation as well as with biochemistry and cell biology. I will address functional disorder and highlight how NMR spectroscopy has been an essential method for these investigations as well as a critical contributor in the understanding of disorder dependent biology.