Here is the first Journal Club presentation.
So it begins… February 25, 2008
My name is Javier Díaz, and this bioblog will be dedicated to everything related to my research project titled “Fap1: Protein function, structure and dynamics” where we try to characterize the trascriptional factor properties of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae protein Fap1. As found in previous research, Fap1 is the yeast homologue to the human protein NF-X1. Fap1 confers resistance to the antibiotic, rapamycin, by competition to a binding site in the FK-506 binding protein 12 (FKBP12). The binding of rapamycin to FKBP12 affects the TOR signalling pathway that responds to nutrient availability. In addition to its protein-binding capacities, Fap1 contains a cystein-rich region that may suggest in the formation of zinc-finger motifs that are know to interact with DNA. The main purpose of our project would be the identification of the formation of these zinc-fingers motifs by X-ray crystallography assays and determine the DNA-binding capacity of Fap1 to act as a transcription factor.
So far, our project has achieved the cloning of the FAP1 gene into a vector that would allow the expression of a recombinant protein that will be over-expressed for later crystallographic assays. To obtain a more manageable protein for easier crystallization, I am in the process of creating a truncated version of the protein.
