Using as a model of study to the enzyme Adenylate kinase (AK), Diego Quiroga-Roger post-doctorate dictate Conference of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

This Thursday, May 31, at 14:00 hours in the Faculty's Aula Magna, the postdoctoral, researcher Diego Quiroga-Roger, from the Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Chile, will give the talk "Study of the forces involved in the conformational changes associated to the ligand binding and catalysis in Adenylate kinase".

This conference is part of a series of seminars with which this department, according to Quiroga-Roger, "discloses the results that the scientists of the Faculty are obtaining in their research and thus spread what we are doing". "It's a way one can generate collaborations by knowing the work that another scientist is developing at the Faculty," says the researcher.

Diego Quiroga-Roger, a prominent graduate, doctor and postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty, says that in the talk he will comment on the results of one of his projects. "This conference tries to tell an excerpt from what I do in my postdoctoral project that is focused on studying conformal changes to understand and deepen the study of enzymatic function. The focus we have on the project is to study the conformal changes by understanding them as mechanical processes, that is, a process that will be fundamentally based on applications of strength and changes in distance. So the empirical part is put into determining forces. By determining forces what we are going to achieve is a biophysical characterization of biochemical events and the study model is the enzyme adenylate kinase (AK)," he says.

It adds that it will present three experimental approaches: "First are studies of the typein single, that is, at the individual molecule level. What I do is I use the optical tweezers to do the AK folding and retracting study." He adds that "another experimental approach is to complement it with studiesin silicowhich are computer simulations, which we do in collaboration with the University of Concepción." It states that "we contrast our studiesin singlewith deployment studies conducted by Dr. Esteban Vahringer-Martínez who is our collaborator", adding that "the last part of the approach involves being able to measure conformal changes but that are smaller and for that we apply a technique of manipulation and visualization of individual molecules using a equipment called Magnetic Fleezers (magnetic clamps coupled to fluorescence)".

Diego Quiroga-Roger adds that "it is important to mention that one of the focus of the work is to empirically determine a region within the AK that would be linked to a local folding and retreating element ("Cracking") which is a relatively new idea and where the AK presents itself as a good model for studying and seeing it empirically through optical tweezers."

This talk is a meeting for all audiences, for undergraduate, postgraduate students, and will be presented in Spanish.

You are all cordially invited to participate!!!

Source:www.quimica.uchile.cl