New Synthetic Methods for Naturally Modified Peptides and Proteins, their Structural Evaluation and Biological Function
One of the major challenges in the area of life sciences is revealing the structure and function of the proteome, which represents the complete set of proteins in a cell. However, proteomic research faces significant limitations in obtaining fully functional proteins as many of these proteins contain complex modifications, which complicate their isolation from natural sources. Therefore, new chemical methodologies are needed to access modified proteins for structural and functional investigations.
Within our research group we intend to develop new synthetic methods to access proteins and peptides with natural protein modification. Consequently, these methods will allow the analysis of functional and structural consequences of protein modifications, as well as the design of bioactive molecules. In general, research projects within this program can be divided into two phases, methodology development and applications.
In the first phase (methodology development), synthetic methods for peptide or protein modifications will be established based on a combination of organic synthesis and biochemical techniques, which allows the access of modified polypeptides containing 100 or more amino acids. In the second phase (applications), the bioactivity and structural properties of modified polypeptides that are accessible through this methodology will be investigated using an array of different biochemical and biophysical methods.
