The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology Annual Report
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Front cover illustration Comparison of joint FRET efficiency and fluorescence lifetime histograms for closed SecYEG:SecA:ADP (left) and translocating complex in the presence of proSpy1 substrate and ATP (right). Top and right sides of each histogram show distribution of lifetimes and FRET efficiencies, respectively. This investigation was a collaboration between Roman Tuma, Joel Crossley, Matthew Watson, Sheena Radford (University of Leeds), and Ian Collinson, Dan Watkins (University of Bristol) and Tomas Fessl (University of South Bohemia).More details can be found on pg 93 of this report. i Mission Statement The Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology will promote interdisciplinary research of the highest standard on the structure and function of biological molecules, biomolecular assemblies and complexes using physico-chemical, molecular biological and computational approaches. ii Introduction Welcome to the Annual Report of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology 2018. I hope you enjoy reading its contents. It has been yet another busy and successful year for the Centre. The reports in the pages that follow highlight just some of our scientific successes of the last year of our members. We are proud of the strength of our community and our collaborations both locally within the Astbury Centre and University as well as with colleagues from across the globe. I would like to thank every member of the Centre for their hard work over the year: our Support staff, Technicians, Facility Managers, Students, Post-docs, Fellows and Academic staff and, of course, Lucy Gray for her excellent organisation and administrative support. Thank you all. During 2018 the Astbury Centre continued in its mission to “Understand Life in Molecular Detail” through multiple different activities, including some exciting research discoveries. We continued to enjoy an excellent seminar series (organised by Joe Cockburn), hosting 9 lectures during the year with speakers from the UK and Europe. An inspiring twelfth Annual Astbury Lecture was given by Prof Rick Morimoto, (Northwestern University, Illinois) on the 19th June, entitled “Protein Quality Control and Cell Stress Responses to Protect Cellular Health in Aging and Disease". This annual event was followed by our tradition of a highly competitive sports day and barbecue hosted by the Astbury Society (see http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/about/society.php). On 20th September, 168 members attended the Centre’s Biennial Research Away Day held at Headingly Stadium for the first time. The day was a fantastic success and students, post-docs and PIs shared their recent exciting scientific discoveries, through talks, posters and the ever-popular “Flash Poster” presentations. Poster prizes were awarded to Jack Caudwell and Ashley Hancock for the best posters. Well done all! We look forward now to events during 2019, with our 20th birthday and residential retreat in a new location- watch out for an update on these events in the coming months and in next year’s report. The 2018 VC Jordan/PR Radford Prize for the best PhD thesis in the Astbury Centre was awarded to Craig Wilkinson for his thesis “Investigating the catalytic cycle of membrane-bound pyrophosphatases (M-PPases).” performed in Professor Adrian Goldman’s laboratory. This annual prize was established in 2017 by a generous donation from Leeds University alumnus Professor Craig Jordan and was presented to Craig by Sir Alan Langmands, Vice Chancellor of the University at the Annual Lecture, http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/prize/. The Centre welcomed five new PI members in 2018: Rene Frank, Qian Wu, Takashi Ochi, Christos Pliotas (University Academic Fellows) and Yuan Guo (University Lecturer in the School of Food Science). Five research fellows also joined the Centre: Elisabetta Gropelli, Nikesh Patel, Vajinder Kumar, Akshath Uchangi and Jenny Tomlinson (see http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/people/external_fellows.php). We look forward to their involvement in Astbury Centre activities. We were also delighted to welcome our new PhD students and postdocs to the Centre this year, bringing our total number of researchers to >400, including 76 academic staff, 261 PhD students, 99 postdoctoral researchers and 14 Research Fellows. Astbury Centre members published their research in a wide range of journals in 2018 including Nature Communications, Nature, JACS and Science. A full list can be found at the end of this report. In terms of grant income, Astbury members also enjoyed many successes in 2018. £14M of new project and programme grants brings the Astbury grant portfolio to a striking £69M share of £111.7M of grants: an impressive figure that is testament to the hard work and success of our members. We are much indebted to the funding agencies that support our science, including BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, the Wellcome Trust, charities, ERC, EU and Industry. We also acknowledge, with thanks, the support of the University of Leeds; the Faculties of Biological Sciences, Maths and Physical Sciences and Medicine and Health, and the Schools of Chemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Biomedical Sciences and Physics and Astronomy for their support of the Centre and our research. iii There was continued success in 2018 for members of the Astbury Centre in terms of peer recognition. Adam Nelson was awarded the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry’s 2018 UCB-Ehrlich Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry. The award recognises his implementation of a vision for new chemical synthesis methods to align with drug discovery needs. Our PhD students won a variety of prizes and awards in 2018. Jack Caudwell (Turnbull & Evans group) won a poster prize at the Leeds Microbubble symposium and also won the School of Chemistry postgraduate conference poster conference prize. Emma Cawood (Wilson group) won first prize for her poster at the RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group Postgraduate Meeting. Kristina Parashiv (Wilson group) won second prize for her poster at the RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group Postgraduate Meeting. Zsofia Hegedus (Wilson group) won a poster prize at the RSC Peptides and Protein Group Early Stage Research Meeting. Rachel Johnson (Muench group) won a poster prize at the Toronto ACA meeting. Congratulations also go to Ethan Morgan (Macdonald group) who was awarded a WT ISSF award to begin the transition to independent researcher. This funds him for one year to work on his own strand of research, whilst based in the laboratory. Well done all on your wonderful achievements. The Astbury Centre continued to contribute to public engagement events in 2018 with a significant presence at the ‘Be Curious’ event in March, ‘Light Night Leeds’ event in October and the ‘One Day At Leeds’ event in November. We are currently looking forward to the third Astbury Conversation that will be held at the University of Leeds on 23rd & 24th March 2020 on the topic ‘Seeing into Cells’ (see https://astburyconversation.leeds.ac.uk). Registration opens in Spring 2019. Do register and join us for a fantastic two days of cutting edge science. The Astbury Society, led by the presidents David Nicholson and Georgia Pangratiou, played a fantastic role in Astbury activities in 2018. Events included the famous Christmas quiz night, wine and cheese events, and a hugely successful sixth May Ball. With continued fund raising through cake bakes and coffee mornings, the Society continues to support the “Leeds Children’s Charity” with donations reaching an impressive £5127 to date. See http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/about/society.php for photos of these events. I hope that you enjoy reading this Annual Report. Thank you to David Brockwell and Lucy Gray for editing this report, everyone who contributed to it, and all who participated in the Astbury Centre’s activities in 2018. The Astbury Centre will celebrate its 20th year in 2019 and we look forward to celebrating this momentous occasion and to continuing our successes in the year ahead. Sheena E. Radford, FMedSci, FRS Director, Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, Leeds, February 2019 Please note that this report (as well as those from previous years) is also available as a PDF document which can be downloaded from our website (www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk). iv CONTENTS Pages Understanding the role of light-harvesting proteins in photo-protection and 1-2 their manipulation for artificial photosynthesis Ashley Hancock and Peter Adams Peroxisome biogenesis and function 3-4 Jack Wright, Sophie Moul, Yousef Al Hajaya, Adrian Goldman, Stephen Muench, Stuart Warriner and Alison Baker The structural mechanisms that underpin the regulation of proteins by 5-6 phosphorylation Selena Burgess, Manjeet Mukherjee, Mark Richards, Sarah Sabir, Josephina Sampson and Richard Bayliss The interaction of silver nanoparticles with model membranes 7-8 Marcos Arribas Perez and Paul Beales Engineering novel natural products and binding motifs 9-10 Ieva Drulyte, Daniel Van, Emily Turri, Adam Nelson and Alan Berry Selective TRPC5 channel activation with a xanthine derivative 11 Aisling Minard, Claudia Bauer, Stuart Warriner, Robin Bon Recognition of disease mutants of FGFR3 by the Cdc37 co-chaperone 12-13 Brendan Farrell and Alex Breeze Kinesin-1: Molecular mechanisms of cargo binding and regulation of transport 14 Sophie Hesketh, Peter Mulhair, Maren Thomsen, Mary O’Connell and Joe Cockburn Water clustering drives temperature-dependent segregation in alcohol-water 15-16 mixtures Samuel Lenton, Natasha Rhys, James Towey and Lorna