Lab Home | Phone | Search
Center for Nonlinear Studies  Center for Nonlinear Studies
 Home 
 People 
 Current 
 Executive Committee 
 Postdocs 
 Visitors 
 Students 
 Research 
 Publications 
 Conferences 
 Workshops 
 Sponsorship 
 Talks 
 Seminars 
 Postdoc Seminars Archive 
 Quantum Lunch 
 Quantum Lunch Archive 
 P/T Colloquia 
 Archive 
 Ulam Scholar 
 
 Postdoc Nominations 
 Student Requests 
 Student Program 
 Visitor Requests 
 Description 
 Past Visitors 
 Services 
 General 
 
 History of CNLS 
 
 Maps, Directions 
 CNLS Office 
 T-Division 
 LANL 
 
Monday, October 19, 2009
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

Colloquium

Biomolecules under pressure: Why it matters

Sol Gruner
Cornell University

Modest pressures encountered in the biosphere (i.e., below a few kbar) have extraordinary effects on biomembranes and proteins. These include pressure denaturation of proteins, as well as dramatic changes in monomer-multimer association, ligand binding, membrane ion transport, transcription/translation of proteins, virus infectivity, enzyme kinetics and conformational states. Yet all of the biomaterials involved are highly incompressible. The challenge is to understand the structural coupling between these effects and pressure to elucidate the relevant mechanisms. X-ray diffraction studies of membranes and proteins under pressure will be described. It is seen that the key is not the magnitude of the changes, but rather the differential compressibilities of different parts of the structure, leading to a biasing of conformational substates. Examples will be given of pressure studies on biomembranes and proteins. Lessons learned have important implications for the freezing of protein crystals, as is routinely done for protein crystallography and on the role or water in proteins.

Host: Michael Wall, CCS-3