Fundamental Studies of Protein Aggregation

在这个来自化学部生命过程化学的奖项中，来自蒙大拿州立大学的玛丽·克洛宁格博士将研究可用于聚集蛋白质的多价相互作用。树枝状聚合物，超支化聚合物，线性聚合物轴承低和高亲和力的配体将被合成和研究。为了足够彻底地评价蛋白质/聚合物聚集体，使得能够实现关于蛋白质簇形成的指导原则，将进行一组不同的实验。检测将包括酶联免疫吸附试验、电子顺磁共振/色谱分析、动态光散射实验、透射电子显微镜成像、荧光寿命波形光谱和尺寸排阻色谱-多角度光散射实验。本研究的目的是提高对合成多价体系如何将蛋白质聚集成确定的聚集体的基本理解，目前，可用于研究和介导多价生物识别过程的离散蛋白质/聚合物聚集体的可控形成的好方法还没有。这项研究应该能够开发新的方法来控制蛋白质在合成多价大分子和聚合物上的展示。这项提案还将作为一个丰富的培训基地，为来自蒙大拿州农村的学生和美洲原住民学生谁参加保留高中和部落学院在学年期间，并参加蒙大拿州州立大学的夏季课程。此外，本研究的显微照片和其他结果将用于与当地中学生的演示。在Cloninger博士在学校进行了初步介绍后，一小群中学生将能够参加到蒙大拿州立大学的实地考察，以参观仪器设备并进行聚合物实验。

In this award from the Chemistry of Life Processes in the Chemistry Division, Dr. Mary Cloninger, from Montana State University, will study multivalent interactions that can be used to cluster proteins. Dendrimers, hyperbranched polymers, and linear polymers bearing low and high affinity ligands will be synthesized and studied. In order to evaluate the protein/polymer aggregates thoroughly enough that guiding principles regarding formation of protein clusters can be enabled, a diverse set of experiments will be performed. Assays will include enzyme linked immunosorbent assays, electron paramagnetic resonance/chromatography assays, dynamic light scattering experiments, transmission electron microscopy imaging, fluorescence lifetime waveform spectroscopy, and size exclusion chromatography-multiangle light scattering experiments. The goal of this research is to improve the fundamental understanding of how synthetic multivalent systems can cluster proteins into defined aggregates.Currently, good methods for controlled formation of discrete protein/polymer aggregates that can be used to study and to mediate multivalent biological recognition processes are not available. This research should enable the development of new methods for controlling the display of proteins on synthetic multivalent macromolecules and polymers. This proposal will also serve as a rich training ground for students from rural Montana and for Native American students who attend reservation high schools and tribal colleges during the school year and participate in summer programs at Montana State University. In addition, the micrographs and other results from this study will be used in presentations with local middle school students. After initial presentations by Dr. Cloninger at the school, small groups of middle school students will be able to participate in field trips to Montana State University in order to see the instrumentation and to perform experiments with polymers.