Dr. Janez Štrancar: Heterogeneity: the key to understand membrane organization and protein structure

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Povzetek:

  Heterogeneity: the key to understand membrane organization and protein structure 

  Dr. Janez Štrancar, Institut Jožef Stefan 

Structure-function relationship became one of the hottest topics on the structural biophysics forefront. For example, protein function is known to be driven by the protein structure and complexity of the environment, while membrane lateral organization represents the main cell mechanism for a redundant (cell-safe) response to very diverse conditions. Until recently, the structure determination has relied on low-temperature experiments leading to high-resolution energy minimized structures but missing dynamical aspects of the story.

In my lecture, I will present our recent work on electron paramagnetic resonance spectra analysis calling for a reconsideration of a lipid phase concept and providing an alternative methodology to protein structure determination. Information on motional heterogeneity inherently connected to high (i.e. physiological) temperatures brought us beyond the standard structural characterization to even very short lived supramolecular structures.