Lateral interactions between proteins in membranes

钙粘蛋白是细胞粘附受体，在实体组织的正常发育和维持以及在癌症进展和转移期间发挥核心作用。尽管在该领域进行了广泛的研究，但有关钙粘蛋白功能和调节的许多问题仍然没有答案。 钙粘蛋白之间的横向相互作用可能对生物学功能很重要，但它们尚未被详细描述，其生物学意义尚不清楚。将表征E钙粘蛋白1横向相互作用，并将建立E钙粘蛋白1缔合热力学与其粘附参数之间的相关性。为了实现这一目标，将使用新的FRET为基础的方法，产生膜蛋白相互作用的能量与高实验精度。这项工作将为广大科学界提供更好的方法来研究膜蛋白的折叠，结构和功能。最终，方法的改进将导致阐明细胞生命中膜蛋白相互作用的发现。这项工作也将推进有关调节细胞粘附的物理过程的基本知识。该项目将为研究生提供资助，并将加强在约翰霍普金斯大学进行研究的本科生的教育经验。 此外，它还将支持有利于青年科学家的广泛外联活动，为2012年FASEB会议“膜的分子生物物理学”提供旅行研究金。

Cadherins are cell adhesion receptors that play a central role in the normal development and maintenance of solid tissues and during cancer progression and metastasis. Despite extensive research in the field, many questions pertaining to cadherin function and regulation remain unanswered. The lateral interactions between cadherins are likely important for biological function, but they have not been characterized in detail and their biological implications are unclear. Ecadherin 1 lateral interactions will be characterized and will establish the correlation between Ecadherin 1 association thermodynamics and its adhesion parameters. To accomplish this goal, novel FRET-based methods will be used that yield the energetics of membrane protein interactions with high experimental precision. This work will provide the broad scientific community with better methods to study membrane protein folding, structure, and function. Ultimately, improvement in methods will lead to discoveries that elucidate the role of membrane protein interactions in cell life. This work will also advance the basic knowledge about the physical processes that regulate cell adhesion. The project will support the funding of graduate students and will enhance the educational experience of undergraduate students conducting research at Johns Hopkins University. In addition, it will support broad outreach activities benefiting young scientists by providing travel fellowships for the 2012 FASEB meeting "Molecular Biophysics of Membranes".