Develop Conditionaly Charged Residues for the Design of Peptide Channels

有了这个奖项，生命过程的化学计划正在支持波士顿学院化学系的高健民教授的研究。高教授将开发和测试一类新的非天然氨基酸，这些氨基酸在与脂质膜相互作用时会改变其电离状态。这些氨基酸被命名为“带正电残基”（CCR），因为它们被设计为在水溶液中带正电，但当置于非极性环境（如脂质膜）中时为中性。 预计这种CCR将在生物有机化学和药物化学中具有广泛的应用。 在这个项目中，合成的CCR将被纳入到充分表征的通道形成肽短杆菌肽A中，作为模型系统。 高教授将研究肽的结构决定因素，使其有效折叠成跨膜通道。该项目的更广泛的影响包括开发一套广泛适用的非蛋白质氨基酸用于化学生物学及其部署，以促进我们对肽-膜相互作用的理解。对研究生和本科生进行跨学科研究的教育和培训同样重要。培训计划包括通过PI与罗克斯伯里社区学院（RCC）发起的实习生计划进行的外展部分。

With this award, the Chemistry of Life Processes program is supporting the research of Professor Jianmin Gao of the Department of Chemistry at Boston College. Professor Gao will develop and test a novel class of unnatural amino acids that change their ionization states upon interacting with lipid membranes. These amino acids are designated as "Conditionally Charged Residues" (CCRs) as they are designed to be positively charged in aqueous solution, but neutral when placed in a nonpolar environment such as a lipid membrane. It is expected that such CCRs will have broad application in bioorganic and medicinal chemistry. In this project, the synthesized CCRs are to be incorporated into the well characterized channel forming peptide, gramicidin A, as a model system. Professor Gao will examine the structural determinants of peptides that enable their efficient folding into transmembrane channels. The Broader Impacts of this project include the development of a set of widely applicable non-proteinogenic amino acids for use in chemical biology and their deployment toward advancing our understanding of peptide-membrane interactions. Of equal importance is the education and training of graduate and undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research. The training program includes an outreach component through the intern program that the PI has initiated with Roxbury Community College (RCC).