Versatile natural surfactant proteins and seeing the previously invisible in structural biology

Biology has evolved proteins with natural surfactant properties for a range of functional niches where they outperform small molecule surfactants. In the first part of my talk I will describe how our investigations of the mechanisms by which ranaspumin-2 and latherin have led us to develop reagents for cell engineering and to investigate how surfactant proteins may be involved in the interaction between biofluids and nanoparticles.
We are used to seeing the beautiful, apparently static structures of proteins and nucleic acids that structural biology techniques can determine, but biomacromolecules are anything but static. In the second part of my talk I will give two examples of how we have used NMR spectroscopy to reveal information about previously invisible states, first in a DNA three-way junction and second, in a novel potassium binding protein from E. coli.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/biology/staff/briansmith/#/publ...