(Romanian version below)
On Tuesday, 8 October 2024, the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest organizes the conference “Signatures of GPCR-lipid Interactions: Specificity, Synergy and Energetics”, held by Durba Sengupta, scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory from India.
The event will take place starting with 16:00 in the Administration Council Hall of the Rectorate of the University of Bucharest (No 90 Panduri Street, district 5, first floor).
Abstract of the conference
The G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are membrane receptors that play a central role in cell signaling and pharmacology. The interaction of lipids with GPCRs has been shown to modulate and dictate several aspects of GPCR organization and function. In this talk, I will discuss the diversity of lipid interaction sites that have been identified from molecular dynamics studies and compare to structural data. Using coarse-grain simulations, we identified several GPCR-lipid, in particular GPCR-cholesterol signatures and highlight the common and specific features. Further, using a set of similarity coefficients, we classify lipids that bind at the receptor together as synergistic co-binding, and those that bind individually as competitive. Not surprisingly, the ganglioside GM1 and cholesterol show a synergistic co-binding. In contrast, certain lipid pairs such as cholesterol and sphingomyelin appear to be in competition at several sites, despite their co-existence in lipid nanodomains. To quantify these interactions, we estimate the energetics and dynamics of lipid association. We show that lipids bind to the receptor with varying energetics of 1-4 kT, and timescales of 1-10 µs. Multi-exponential fitting of the contact probability suggests a three-step model, that we correlate with the annular, intermediate and non-annular sites. High barrier heights are estimated between the states that reduce the association/dissociation kinetics. The results highlight that GPCR-lipid interactions are driven by both thermodynamic interactions and the dynamical features of lipid binding.
About the speaker
Durba Sengupta is a scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory from India. Her research interests revolve around membrane biophysics, structural biology, theory and computational chemistry and physical chemistry. The present focus of her research is membrane biology and the understanding of the structure, dynamics and functions of proteins, lipids, sugars and sterols within the membrane. More information about Durba Sengupta are available here, here and here.
ICUB organizează conferința “Signatures of GPCR-lipid Interactions: Specificity, Synergy and Energetics”, susținută de Durba Sengupta, cercetătoare la Laboratorul Național de Chimie din India
Marți, 8 octombrie 2024, Institutul de Cercetare al Universității din București (ICUB) organizează conferința “Signatures of GPCR-lipid Interactions: Specificity, Synergy and Energetics”, susținută de Durba Sengupta, cercetătoare la Laboratorul Național de Chimie din India.
Evenimentul va avea loc începând cu ora 16:00 în Sala Consiliului de Administrație din cadrul Rectoratului Universității din București (Șos. Panduri nr. 90, sector 5, etajul 1).
Despre conferențiară
Durba Sengupta este cercetătoare la Laboratorul Național de Chimie din India. Interesele ei de cercetare vizează biofizica membranelor, biologia structurală, chimia teoretică și computațională și chimia fizică. În prezent, cercetarea ei se concentrează pe biologia membranelor și pe înțelegerea structurii, dinamicii și funcțiilor proteinelor, lipidelor, glucidelor și sterolilor din cadrul membranelor. Mai multe informații despre Durba Sengupta sunt disponibile aici, aici și aici.
Rezumatul conferinței pe care cercetătoarea Durba Sengupta o va susține la Rectoratul UB marți, 8 octombrie 2024, poate fi consultat aici.