ChemBE Seminar: Anne Skaja Robinson

Description

Anne Skaja Robinson, a professor and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, will give a talk titled "G-Protein Coupled Receptors: Protein Engineering Approaches to Improve Expression and Determine Protein-Protein Interactions" for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Refreshments will follow the lecture.

Abstract:

The adenosine receptor subfamily of G-protein coupled receptors is an important family of membrane receptors that modulate blood pressure, and more recently have been implicated in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and diabetes, making them a significant fraction of drug discovery efforts. As multipass membrane proteins, G-protein coupled receptors remain challenging but important targets of drug discovery, and our efforts have enabled the high-level expression of the adenosine family of receptors. Adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR), one of four subfamily members, has a longer C-terminus than the other adenosine receptor subtypes, which may contribute to its exceptional trafficking to the plasma membrane, but its flexibility has been attributed to protein-protein interactions. In this talk I will discuss some of our expression and protein trafficking engineering, particularly related to creating protein chimeras. In addition, I will descript the in-depth biophysical characterization of adenosine receptors purified in both micelles and nanodiscs, and their binding to ligands and G-proteins, and how their membrane environment effects active state properties, including binding kinetics.

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