Project

Protein Inference by targeted protein aggregation

Code
179I0307
Duration
01 October 2007 → 30 September 2011
Funding
Regional and community funding: various
Promotor
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Biochemistry and metabolism
    • Systems biology
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Medical biochemistry and metabolism
    • Medical biochemistry and metabolism
    • Medical biochemistry and metabolism
Keywords
protein aggregation
 
Project description

The aim of this project is to develop a generic method to knockout protein function by specifically inducing precipitation of a target protein from whatever environment it may reside, whether it is an intact cell, a complex cell lysate or the extracellular medium, including the bloodstream, and this in al type of organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants and vertebrates. The method is based on the fact that (1) protein aggregation is generally a very specific self-association process and (2) that the specificity of this self-association process is determined by short sequence stretches within the protein (typically 5 to 15 residues). As a result it is in principle possible to specifically induce aggretation using short interfering peptides derived from the aggregation-determing sequence segments of target proteins.