Center for Bioinformatics at KU

As part of our public Seminar Series
http://bioinformatics.ku.edu/seminars

March 31, Tue 2009
1:00 pm, MRB 100 Conference Room

Dr. Roger E. Koeppe II

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arkansas

Perspectives on arginine and proline in membrane-spanning peptides

The orientation, geometry and dynamics of membrane-spanning peptides are of considerable experimental and theoretical interest.  Model peptides of the WALP family have been investigated by using solid-state NMR spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations.  This seminar will address several questions.  How closely do the 2H NMR GALA and 15N NMR PISEMA methods agree in their predictions of transmembrane helix orientation?  What is the influence of a single proline or a single arginine upon the geometry and orientation of a transmembrane helical peptide?  How feasible it is to bury an arginine side chain within a lipid bilayer membrane?