Catalyst Project: Identification of New Regulators of Endothelial Protein C Receptor Functions

催化剂项目为历史上的黑人学院和大学提供支持，努力建立教师的研究能力，以加强科学，技术，工程和数学本科教育和研究。预计该奖项将进一步提高教师的研究能力，改善研究和教学机构，并参与本科生的研究经验。德克萨斯大学的这个项目旨在识别和表征影响蛋白质的重要分子。本科生将参与这项涉及计算机建模的研究。研究结果将用于德克萨斯大学的课程。该项目将鉴定生理上重要的多功能和多配体跨膜受体蛋白- EPCR的功能的新的小分子调节剂。利用同源建模和分子动力学模拟，该项目将创建在已发表的结构中找不到的EPCR功能相关构象。基于结构的小分子与这些构象的分子对接，然后通过数据库搜索将确定候选分子，这些候选分子将通过实验测试以揭示其监管潜力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution, and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. This project at Texas College intends to identify and characterize important molecules that affect proteins. Undergraduate students will participate in this research that involves computer modeling. The research results will be used in coursework at Texas College. This project will identify new small molecular regulators of functions of the physiologically important multifunctional and multi-ligand transmembrane receptor protein – EPCR. Using homology modeling and molecular dynamics simulations, the project will create functionally relevant conformations of EPCR which cannot be found in published structures. Structure based molecular docking of small molecules to these conformations followed by the database searches will identify candidate molecules that will be tested experimentally to reveal their regulatory potential.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.