Seminarios del Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada 2022: “How do proteins interpret mechanical signals? Single-molecule lessons from the talin mechanosensor” .- Viernes 8 de abril
El viernes 8 de abril a las 12:30 h tendrá lugar la conferencia de este ciclo que impartirá Rafael Tapia Rojo (King's College London). Se titula "How do proteins interpret mechanical signals? Single-molecule lessons from the talin mechanosensor".
La charla se realizará en la Sala de Grados del edificio A (Físicas) de la Facultad de Ciencias. La sesión será grabada y colgada posteriormente en el canal de Youtube del departamento para que pueda ser visualizada por quienes no puedan asistir.
Resumen de la Charla:
Mechanical stimuli regulate many biological functions, including cell migration, development, or differentiation. Despite recent critical advances in our understanding of mechanotransduction, how cells detect and interpret mechanical cues from a molecular perspective remains largely unknown. Here, I will present some of our latest work on talin, a critical force-sensing protein working in focal adhesions. Thanks to our newly developed magnetic tweezers setup, we directly measured the conformational dynamics of single talin proteins under mechanical conditions mimicking those in the cell. With this approach, we explored three facets underpinning the force-sensing function of the talin protein, namely: 1) its conformational dynamics under force over long timescales; 2) its ability to recruit ligands such as vinculin in a force-dependent way; 3) the role of cryptic posttranslational modifications on its force-sensing properties.
Overall, in this seminar, I will illustrate how protein folding and protein chemistry couple together to establish biological mechanisms allowing cells to interact with their mechanical microenvironment
