Event Series

Molecular Discovery Seminar Series

Event Description

"Capturing transient interactions of proteins involved in natural product biosynthesis" How do microorganisms produce chemically diverse and structurally complex molecules? How can humans harness this energy to better human health and the environment? These questions inspire our lab to study acyl carrier proteins (ACPs), which are central hubs in polyketide and fatty acid biosynthetic pathways. This class of proteins is notoriously challenging to study because the fast motions of the ACP phosphopantetheine (Ppant) arm make its conformational dynamics difficult to capture using traditional spectroscopic approaches. In this talk, I will present how the synthetic modification of the terminal thiol of the ACP Ppant arm into a thiocyanate transforms the ACP reactive site into a vibrational spectroscopic probe that can report on the...