CAREER:A computational approach to template-based structure selection for protein-protein interactions

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Missouri-Columbia is awarded a grant from the Faculty Early Career Development program (CAREER) to support research on macromolecular interactions, a central theme in functional genomics. The ability to predict protein-protein interactions has far reaching impact on understanding the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction and macromolecular assemblies, and ultimately on rational design of protein functions. Significant progress has been made on prediction of protein-protein interactions based on individual protein structures (referred to as protein-protein docking). However, lack of a reliable energy scoring functions to evaluate the binding tightness remains a critical problem in the field. Furthermore, with the rapid progress of the genome projects, it has become commonplace in plant, animal and human biology that homology-modeled structures are available for the study of protein pairs of interest, and the development of a systematic computational method for homologous protein-protein docking will have broad practical applications. This research will develop a new rigorously derived scoring function for protein-protein interactions based on the physical principles, and understanding why the new scoring function works will provide valuable insights into the development of other scoring functions. A new paradigm will also be developed and validated for predicting protein-protein interactions for cases in which only homology-modeled structures are available. The software package and test sets generated in this project will be available through the Zou lab website: http://zoulab.dalton.missouri.edu/. As a part of her CAREER award, Dr. Zou will develop a true and unique interdisciplinary environment in her laboratory and in her class for excellence in research and education, particularly for underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students. Examples include developing a unique interdisciplinary curriculum and sponsoring undergraduate and pre-doctoral research fellowships/internships particularly for women and minority students. The PI also actively participates in scientific educations to local community and to Missouri high school students.