Master thesis defense by Nicolas Bertram

Seizing Membrane Proteins - Nanodisc Characterization and Application

Master thesis by Nicolas Bertram

Abstract: Membrane proteins (MPs) continue being an elusive target for research, which is mainly due to the challenges regarding isolation and preservation of their native states. This project seeks to investigate the functional and structural characteristics behind association of multiple enzymes of the Cytochrome P450 (CYP) Superfamily from the subtropical crop plant Sorghum Bicolor. The strategy is to capture relevant MPs in a conned lipid bilayer construct, termed a nanodisc (ND), and study biological mechanisms with the help of ND lm formation on surfaces. Earlier, it has been shown that neutron reection (NR) is an effective method to measure equilibria of NADPH-dependent conformational changes in Cytochrome P450 Reductase (POR). The POR was constituted in a small belt - MSP1D1 - ND, however, the yield of incorporated MP was relatively low, which limits signal strength. I present a feasibility study on angstrom resolution structural measurements of POR and other CYPs trapped in large radii NDs constituted with an alternative belt protein - MSP1E3D1.

Internal Supervisors: Associate Professor Marite Cardenas Gomez and Professor Birger Lindberg Møller
External Supervisors: Dr. Robert Barker
Cencor: Kristine Kilså