Peptide Assemblies: Some of the Rules of this Complex Puzzle

Peptide Assemblies: Some of the Rules of this Complex Puzzle

Title: Peptide Assemblies: Some of the Rules of this Complex Puzzle.
When: Friday, 22nd February, 2019, at 12:00.
Place: Sala de Conferencias, Módulo 00, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Speaker: Maité Paternostre, I2BC, Université Paris Saclay, France.

In nature, evolution as fine-tuned effective and often amazingly efficient strategies for building functional assemblies such as biological membranes, virus capsids, or cytoskeletons. The intra- and intermolecular interactions that tie together these macromolecular and supramolecular architectures are almost all noncovalent. Only the combination of those multiple weak interactions allows stability of the architectures, but also their responsiveness and dynamics since they may fluctuate, rearrange, reassemble when exposed to the proper stimuli. Both stability and dynamics of such architectures is most often highly cooperative, rendering quantification of individual contributions particularly challenging since they come into play simultaneously. In this context, in the group we study the self-assembly structures and mechanism of natural systems such as virus capsid but also synthetic ones such as oligopeptide. The seminar will focus on the mechanisms of peptide self-assembly and of the structures of these assemblies. The studies of the self-assembly properties of small peptides (8 to 14 amino-acids) allow precise understanding and characterization of the physical and physico-chemical rules guiding the self-assembly of these molecules.

maite-paternostre_conf