Learning outcomes
Module 1: Cell Signaling, provides an overview of main principles and mechanisms signal transduction. Concepts like information flow, cellular computation, and decision making will be introduced. A systematic overview of main eukaryotic and prokaryotic signaling pathways will be presented.
Module 2: Biomolecular Catalysis, will provide a sufficiently detailed overview of the basic enzyme mechanisms and kinetic approaches to study enzymes.
Module 3: Structural Biology, will give a basic overview of protein (and DNA) structure. Special lectures are dedicated to contemporary methods for structural analysis of proteins and other biological macromolecule. Structural modeling methods and software will be introduced and tested in a seminar.
Module 4: provides and overview of bacterial signaling, protein synthesis and antibiotic mechanisms.
Brief description of content
3-D structure of proteins; X-ray; Neutron diffraction. Structure of proteins in solution from NMR methods. The structural building blocks. Motifs or supersecondary structures. Assembly of proteins from the building blocks.
Protein diversity. Introns, exons, and inteins and exteins. Divergent evolution of families of proteins. Convergent evolution. Evolution of proteins by fusion of gene fragments. Homology, sequence identity, and structural similarity.
Principles of chemical catalysis. Transition state theory. The Hammond postulate. Chemical basis of the Hammond postulate. Intramolecular catalysis: The "effective concentration" of a group on an enzyme. General acid-base catalysis. Entropy: The theoretical basis of intramolecular catalysis and effective concentration. Electrostatic catalysis. Metal ion catalysis. Covalent catalysis. Electrophilic catalysis by Schiff base formation. Pyridoxal phosphate-Electrophilic catalysis. Thiamine pyrophosphate-Electrophilic catalysis. Nucleophilic catalysis. Structure-activity relationships. Nucleophilic attack at the carbonyl group. The principle of microscopic reversibility or detailed balance. The principle of kinetic equivalence.
