北京大学定量生物学中心

学术报告

题    目： Theories and simulations for sequence-specific behaviors of intrinsically disordered proteins in liquid-liquid phase separation

报告人：林義軒

Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, and Molecular Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

时    间：10月15日（周一）13:00-14:00

地    点：北京大学老化学楼东配楼101报告厅

主持人：刘志荣 教授

摘 要：

  Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are proteins lacking hydrophobic but enriched in polar, charged, and aromatic amino acids. IDPs do not fold into a unique structure in isolation and often remain disordered when performing biological function. Recently, some IDPs have been discovered to undergo reversible liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) in aqueous solution, forming functional membraneless organelles with nucleic acids and/or other proteins in the cell. Charge sequence pattern has been identified as one of the most important characteristics in biological phase separation. To understand this sequence-specific phenomenon, we develop a random-phase-approximation (RPA) theory for phase separation of polyampholytic IDPs. The RPA theory has been applied to various IDP systems and its predictions are consistent with experiments and simulations. The theory has provided a general theoretical framework for studying the sequence-specific properties in biological phase separation.

报告人简介：

  林義軒博士2009年于伊利諾大学物理学院获得本科学位，2015年于俄亥俄州立大学物理学院获得博士学位，2015年至今为多伦多大学生物化学系和多伦多病童医院分子医学中心博士后。研究方向为生物、物理、化学的交叉领域，目前专注于应用理论物理结合实验研究生物大分子体系液-液相分离的序列特征及物理机制。已经在Phys. Rev. Lett., Nucleic Acids Res., PNAS等国际期刊上发表多篇文章。