January 25, Wednesday 14:15, Room 303, Jacobs Building

Title: Computational characterization of motif-mediated interactions

Lecturer: Chen Yanover

Lecturer homepage : http://cyanover.fhcrc.org/

Affiliation : Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

The prediction of macromolecular interactions is a key challenge for computational molecular biology. A particularly large class of interactions consists of those mediated by a linear sequence motif in the partner molecule: peptide, DNA or RNA. Two approaches to computationally characterize such motif-mediated interactions have been put forward. In the first, a binding model is inferred based on experimental data on binding and non-binding molecules; the second approach uses structural simulations to explicitly model the three-dimensional structures and chemical properties of the interacting partners. Using the example of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins, I will discuss the pros and cons of each approach and demonstrate their clinical implications.