光感蛋白隐花色素之构象动力学与功能机理的单分子研究

隐花色素是一种神奇的、主管动植物生物钟韵律的蓝光感应蛋白。更加有趣的是，隐花色素被证实与鸟类和昆虫的地磁感应导航能力有直接关系。近期内，研究者们在隐花色素的三级结构与生化机理方面都得到了更多的认识。例如广为接受的一个假设是隐花色素在受到蓝光激活后透过构象变化来传递执行功能的讯号。但是我们对此蛋白分子如何执行如此多样与特殊的功能仍然所知甚少。单分子荧光共振能量转换实验与生物信息学计算是研究生物大分子（如蛋白质等）的强大工具，为研究隐花色素提供了一个理想的手段。在此项目中，我们预期使用先进的单分子时间解析荧光实验与生物信息学手段来探索隐花色素的功能机理。此课题的成果可以解答关于动植物是如何受到日照与地磁场的影响方面的一些基础科学问题。

Cryptochrome is a mysterious blue-light sensing protein which mediates circadian cycles in bacteria, animals, and plants. More intriguingly, this protein has been found to be involved in insects' ability to sense earth's magnetic field and recognize directions. Recently, scientists have made significant progress in understanding the tertiary structure and biochemical mechanism of this protein. Nevertheless, exactly how this protein molecule executes such diverse and intricate tasks is still mostly unknown to scientists. One of the prevalent hypotheses is that cryptochrome undergoes conformational remodeling upon the excitation of blue-light, which initiates the signaling cascade for its function. Single-molecule FRET (F?ster-type Resonance Energy Transfer) experiments and bioinformatics calculations are perfect tools to study the conformational dynamics of biological macromolecules like proteins. We aim to decrypt the working principles of cryptochrome by state-of-art single-molecule time-resolved fluorescence measurements and advanced bioinformatics techniques. The results of this study will answer some of the most fundamental scientific questions involving how animals and plants are affected by day light and earth's magnetic fields.