We are a team of structural biologists and biochemists seeking to understand the relationship between protein structure, dynamics and function. We focus primarily on proteins with intrinsically disordered regions, whose high flexibility poses a challenge for traditional methods of structural biology. We use and further develop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods, combining them with cryo-electron microscopy and other biophysical techniques. This allows us to study the structure and dynamics of proteins and their complexes under conditions close to their natural environment.
Understanding how proteins move and interact is important for explaining many processes in both healthy and diseased cells. Intrinsically disordered regions are often involved in regulating cellular processes, and disruption of this regulation can lead to various diseases. At the same time, interfering with regulatory mechanisms can also be used to combat infectious agents. Detailed knowledge of the structure, dynamics and interactions of disordered proteins can therefore help us understand the molecular mechanisms underlying disease and provide a basis for developing new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.
Our findings show that understanding how proteins function requires more than knowing their final structure – their dynamics and ability to change their spatial arrangement can be equally important. We have developed methods that make it possible to study even large intrinsically disordered proteins at atomic resolution. Using these approaches, we have described, for example, mechanisms through which flexible protein regions influence the regulation of genetic information transcription in bacteria, as well as interactions involving disordered proteins important for the development and function of nerve cells.
We are currently expanding our research on the transcription of genetic information to other bacteria to better understand the differences between individual species and identify their vulnerabilities. We also plan to focus on proteins that help bacteria resist the effects of antibiotics. Our main goal is to understand in detail how these proteins function at the molecular level. The knowledge gained may contribute to finding new ways to combat pathogens that cause infectious diseases, including resistant strains that withstand commonly used antibiotics.
