Prof.dr. Patrick Onck, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Abstract:

Although it has long been assumed that proteins only inherit their function from folding into a specific structure, there is now increasing evidence that natively unfolded proteins play an important role in many biological functions, such as nuclear transport. Transport of molecules in and out of the nucleus of eukaryotic cells is controlled by large protein complexes, called ‘nuclear pore complexes’ (NPCs), that are embedded in the nuclear membrane. The actual transport is mediated by natively unfolded proteins, FG-nucleoporins (FG-nups), forming a low-density cloud of flexible filaments that line the core region of the NPC. To explore how these FG-nups mediate transport we have developed a coarsegrained molecular dynamics model. I will discuss some recent results on the predicted spatial conformation of the FG-nups inside the transport channel and how this is encoded in the amino-acid sequence.