Interactive Analysis of Protein Structure and Dynamics

Understanding the structure-function relationship of proteins such as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) requires detailed information on their three-dimensional (3D) structure and dynamics. Recent progress in the structural elucidation of receptor-G protein or -arrestin complexes yields valuable starting points to studying their function and dynamics. I investigated the dynamic process of β2 adrenergic receptor-G protein recognition and binding using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. MD simulation is a well-established technique to monitor the time-resolved motions of proteins and is used to investigate the dynamics of GPCRs. In order to start MD simulations, the structures that are often incompletely resolved have to be further completed. Finally, the results from computational analysis have to be subjected to experimental validation. To promote broad applicability of that workflow, I automated critical steps such as modeling of missing segments or interactive analysis and visualization of the results of MD simulations. Web-tools allow researchers besides different methodological expertise to apply unfamiliar techniques on their biological systems of interest without the need to download software or databases. To facilitate usage, I included visualization allowing intuitive understanding and analysis. We developed the NGL molecular web-viewer, which accesses hardware-accelerated graphics through WebGL. This and other recent developments, reviewed by Mwalongo and others, opened up new possibilities for web molecular graphics and render- ing techniques, superseding plugin- and Java-based viewers and making them comparable with desktop tools, such as PyMOL, VMD, or UCSF Chimera. Here, I implemented and applied tools for interactive modeling of missing segments into single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps, for interactive analysis of structure-functional dynamics, and more general to promote interdisciplinary research. To allow non-expert users access to bioinformatics methods and biophysical techniques, all tools were generated as web-services allowing interactive analysis and visualization.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Leipzig

Year

2020

Author dc:creator

• Tiemann, Johanna Katarina Sofie

• GPCR
• MDs
• Visualization
• Modeling
• cryo-EM