1 February (Thursday), 11:00am, AINSE Theatre. Hosted by Anthony Duff Po-chia Chen EMBL · Structural and Computational Biology Unit "SAXS-based screening: a proof of principle using the RNA-binding protein sex-lethal"
Protein-RNA interactions can be characterized by both sequence-specific and non-specific interactions1 due to the ubiquitous presence of charged contacts associated with nucleic acid backbones. This multiplicity of binding modes complicates screening efforts to identify strong-affinity RNA sequences (also known as cognate motifs,) required to apply structural biology techniques. In addition, the cost of production of specific RNA sequences hinder current efforts to validate motifs enriched from affinity screens using techniques such as ITC and NMR.
We report here a SAXS-based screen (SAXScreen) that estimates binding affinities and categorises binding mechanism, based upon variations in the measured SAXS intensity over ligand titration. This is validated by conducting sparse sequence-space searches around known Sex-lethal protein2 interactions, using efficient automated synchtron beamline setups.3 Titration over ~35 RNA motifs reveal sequence-dependent variations in complex formation, which in combination with structural modelling is shown to be based on preferences between 1:1 and 2:2 binding stoichiometries. Further confirmation via NMR titration differentiates between the roles of domains RRM1 and RRM2, as well as specific interactions with poly-uridines versus non-specific interactions with poly-cytidines. These findings position SAXScreen as a complementary screening tool that provides preliminary structural characterisation of biomolecular interactions.
References:
1. Guenther, U.-P. et al. Nature 502:385–388 (2013).
2. Gebauer, F., et al. EMBO J. 18, 6146–6154 (1999).
3. Blanchet, C. E. et al. J. Appl. Crystallogr. 48:431–443 (2015).
8 February (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room Callum Sutton "Laser alignment tests carried out on the TAIPAN PG Monochromator"
1 March (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Vanessa Peterson Josie Auckett "Explorations of porous framework materials for the capture and separation of gases"
22 March (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room N/A "No Seminar - Another Event"
5 April (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Chris Garvey Daniela Russo Institut Laue-Langevin "Dynamical properties of photosynthetic bio-molecules: probing the flexibility of genetically modified Chlamydomonas green algae"
11 April (Wednesday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Chris Garvey Andreas Stadler "Crowding effects on intrinsically disorder proteins"
11 April (Wednesday), 11:30am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Chris Garvey Keyun Shou "Shape changes in red blood cells"
12 April (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Jamie Schulz Mark Rutland KTH Royal Institute of Technology "Touchy, feely & rough water"
20 April (Friday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Vanessa Peterson Prof. Seth M. Cohen University of California, San Diego "MOFs: From Motors to Materials"
3 May (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Tamim Darwish Assoc. Prof. Michael Higgins University of Wollongong "Nanobio Interactions at Material Surfaces"
10 May (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Garry McIntyre Stephan Rachel University of Melbourne "Exotic magnetism and spin liquid behaviour in frustrated magnets"
17 May (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Nick Hauser Richard Northam AAF, Nectar and RDS "The Australian Research Data Cloud – taming the data monsters and transforming data centric research"
7 June (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Tamim Darwish Nadim Darwish "Towards single-molecule devices"
27 June (Wednesday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room Katie Sizeland Australian Synchrotron "Discovering the architecture and physical properties of collagen biomaterials"
26 July (Thursday), 2:00pm, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Elliot Gilbert Pamela Chu/Carlos Gonzalez National Institute of Standards & Technology "An overview of the Chemical Science Division"
3 August (Friday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Kathleen Wood Anne Martel Institut Laue Langevin "Small Angle Scattering for Biology at the ILL"
16 August (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Paolo Imperia Lou Vance "What’s happening in synroc these days?"
A followup from
2016
14 July (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room Lou Vance ANSTO "History and Development of Synroc"
23 August (Thursday), 2:00pm, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Jamie Schulz Julie Cairney Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis "New frontiers in atomic scale imaging with atom probe tomography"
31 August (Friday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Garry McIntyre Nina-Juliane Steinke "Magnetic Order in Thin Film Systems with Topological States"
Nina-Juliane Steinke studied physics at Humboldt Universität Berlin, Germany before joining Loughborough University in the UK where she obtained her master degree studying shape memory materials using neutron diffraction techniques. She then moved to the University of Cambridge, UK where she completed her PhD and a junior research fellowship with Newnham College, working on magnetic thin film heterostructures using MBE growth and polarised neutron reflectometry techniques. Since 2012 she is instrument scientist for the spin-echo enabled, polarised neutron reflectometer Offspec at the ISIS neutron and muon source, UK. Her current research focuses on magnetic order in thin film topological systems, mainly topological insulators.
25 October (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Jamie Schulz Oliver Kirstein European Spallation Source "European Spallation Source Update"
1 November (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Stephen Holt Charles Cranfield UTS "Ionic interactions at the interface of lipid bilayers studied using tethered lipid bilayer membranes (tBLMs)"
5 November (Monday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Robert Knott Peter Geltenbort ILL "Fundamental Neutron Physics at the ILL"
The Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) is an international research centre at the leading edge of neutron science and technology. As the world’s flagship centre for neutron science, the ILL provides scientists with a very high flux of neutrons feeding some 40 state-of-the-art instruments, which are constantly being developed and upgraded.
The instruments of the nuclear and particle physics group (NPP) and their fields of research are briefly presented.
ILL’s two ultracold neutron installations are described in more detail.
The ongoing research program using ultracold neutrons as measuring the lifetime of the free neutron, the search for an electric dipole moment and gravity resonance spectroscopy are highlighted.
16 November (Friday), 3:00pm, B82 Conference Room. Hosted by Andrew Berry R. Hall-Wilton, A. Khaplanov, F. Messi European Spallation Source "Snapshots of some recent detector developments at the European Spallation Source "
Abstract:
This presentation will show some snapshots of some recent detector developments at the European Spallation Source. It is based upon presentations presented at the IEEE NSS Conference that took place in Sydney this week. For the 15 instruments presently under construction, the detector technologies have been chosen, the developments are almost complete, and construction is about to start. Due to the high requirements for the instruments, significant detector development have been performed over the past 8 years. Over half of the instruments will use detectors based upon Boron-10 thin films. This presentation will be in 3 parts:
- An overview of detector choices for the instruments
- Results from the recent demonstrator testing of the Multi-Grid detector design, for chopper spectrometry done at the SEQUOIA instrument at SNS
- Results from the recent demonstrator testing of the Multi-Blade detector design, for reflectometry
Brief Bios:
Richard Hall-Wilton is since 2011 the ESS detector group leader at ESS. Prior to that he comes from an experimental high energy physics background at CERN in Geneva and DESY in Hamburg.
Anton Khaplanov also joined the ESS detector group in 2011, from a Nuclear Physics background. He has primarily worked on leading the development of the Multi-Grid detector, including 3 years of this seconded to the ILL.
Francesco Messi, also from a nuclear physics background, with a diversion via a company developing drones monitoring power lines, joined the Neutronics group at Lund University in 2016, and works within the ESS detector group. He works as part of the team developing the Multi-Blade detector design.
22 November (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Anthony Duff Zoe Fisher "DEMAX: The Deuteration and Macromolecular Crystallization Support labs for the European Spallation Source."
22 November (Thursday), 11:30am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Anthony Duff Anna Leung "Synthesis of Deuterated Molecules Using Enzyme Catalysis"
12 December (Wednesday), 2:30pm, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Joseph Bevitt Kohei Uosaki "Electrochemical Surface and Energy Conversion"
13 December (Thursday), 11:00am, B83 Conference Room. Hosted by Richard Mole Simone Calvello ANSTO and the University of Melbourne "Theoretical Characterization of Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Lanthanide Single Molecule Magnets"
Theoretical characterization of electronic structure and magnetic properties of lanthanide complexes is crucial for developing molecular memories with unprecedented storage capacity, molecular spintronic devices, and spin-qubits for quantum computation. Throughout my PhD, I contributed to (i) developing and implementing an ab initio computational method for lanthanide complexes, which I proved to be faster than current ab initio approaches, and (ii) generalising the theory of NMR direct chiral discrimination to open-shell molecules, predicting room temperature NMR-based discrimination of chiral lanthanide complexes.
