Molecular Structural Biology
van der Waals Dispersion Forces in Drug Discovery
Carfilzomib, a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved anti-cancer drug, is an inhibitor of cellular proteasome. Carfilzomib is a tetrapeptide with four side chains (P1-4). Its specificity for the catalytic subunit b5 of the 20S proteasome core particle is determined by van der Waals interactions of its hydrophobic P1 leucyl group in the S1 pocket.
Histone methylation and gene regulation
Human Menin, a tumor repressor protein, has been identified as a “bona fide reader” of H3K79me2 (Lin et al. SCIENCE 17 February 2023). It is a scaffold protein that can interact with a multitude of proteins with diverse cellular functions, and both positively as well as negatively regulate gene expression.
Protein folding
Protein folding is the process that steers a polypeptide chain from its linear amino acid sequence to a defined spatial structure characteristic of the native state of the protein.
Immune response mechanisms – structural basis
Antibody-antigen (Ab-Ag) interaction forms the basis of adaptive immune response mechanisms of a vertebrate.