I Need a Problem

[dan0909]

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Hey I'm TRYING to think of a problem in protein engineering to attempt to present a possible solution to in a protein engineering class. Do any of you have any ideas? And don't say predicting protein structure, please...

Thanks in Advance,
Dan

 

[commy-superman]

hummm how about predicting protein stucture?

 

[Winston Smith]

how about this. can you change a protein structure so that the enzyme will have an entirely different effect? (like if say someone had too much of an enzyme and too less of another enzyme. i know it's possible to introduce an enzyme altogether, but it'd be kinda cool to change an abundant enzyme to get one that's in low concentration)

 

[jbing]

how about changing protein structure to enhance thermostability, particularly in enzymes. this isn't a very original topic and you might not be the only one doing it in your class, but theres a lot of material on it.

 

[dan0909]

hey! thanks a lot for your replies. they will be most helpful...

 

[toomuch]

You can always look how Rod McKinnon crystallizes membrane proteins and look at some way to improve the process because the crystallization gives researchers loads of info about the function as well as structure. I think he got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year for his ion channel work.

tm

 

[Bones2008]

How about altering an enzyme's allosteric binding site and seeing how that affects its function. Might be especially interesting in metabolism. So are you just supposed to postulate a question or do you actually get to do the experiment? This stuff sounds cool.

 

[dan0909]

Nono...we don't come anywhere near a lab...it's just hypothetical stuff...

it's a pretty basic protein engineering class. We're just supposed to design/manipulate some peptide/protein...seems kinda easy, but i don't really know anything about designing peptides, just fresh outta undergrad...

 

[Aptamer]

What about enantioselectivity of catalyzed organic reactions at 'normal' conditions i.e. temperature, pH, atmospheric pressure? There is a search for these enzymes, natural or synthetic, that would be of tremendous value to industry and chemical engineering.

What about directed evolution to obtain these enzymes???