The shape and conformation of proteins are important indicators of their function. In our project We want to determine protein conformation using a combination of single-molecule methodologies ,which includes trapping the protein of interest and imaging it using advanced microscopy.
At the moment we would like to move our studies from the model systems (gold nanorods, fluorescent polystyrene beads) to real proteins. We plan to start with very large proteins , which match the size of our previous model systems. Therefore we have chosen encapsulin cages as our protein interest as it very predictable and has a simple-to-analyze spherical shape. Moreover this protein is a cage and it can be loaded to change its molecular weight.
Figure 1. Schematic image of dielectrophoretic trappig of the encapsulin molecule
Your Project Plan:
1. Express encapsulin cages in the biolab
2. Image Encapsulin cages on the glass
3. Find the optimum protocol for single-encapsulin imaging
4. Trapping Encapsulin using dielectrophoresis and nanoelectrodes (Master student)
You will learn: 1) biolab and expression/purification of proteins. 2) Optical confocal microscope 3) imaging single-encapsulin species. 4) Dielectrophoretic trapping/manipulation of the encapsulin (Master student level)
