Distinguished Speaker Series: Predicting protein-protein interactions at low and high resolution

Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics
Jointly with
School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry & Biophysics

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKER SERIES SEMINAR

Prof. Barry Honig

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University Medical Center

"Predicting protein-protein interactions at low and high resolution"

Sunday, March 12 2023, at 14:15 
(Refreshments from 14:00)

Britannia building, Hall 006, Life Sciences, TAU

Abstract: Recent progress in the prediction of protein-protein interactions will be discussed. By low resolution we refer to the use of structural information to predict whether two proteins form a complex on a proteome-wide scale. New developments include the use of multiple sequence alignments to determine evolutionary relationships, deep learning approaches and the integration of these methods with more traditional structure-informed predictions. Energetic measures of binding affinities are still beyond the reach of such methods. High resolution in our terms refers to the energetic effects on binding affinities resulting from one or more mutations in protein-protein interfaces. A variety of tools are available for this problem ranging from machine learning to complex molecular simulations that underlie the free energy perturbation (FEP) method. The utility of these tools will be discussed through applications to two problems of biological interest. b) The design of mutants of neuronal adhesion proteins and their effect on neuronal circuit development. b) The design of mutants aimed at improving the binding of antibodies to Covid-19 variants.

Host: Prof. Nir Ben-Tal, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU