Optical Control of Protein Activity Using Engineered Photoreceptors

CHANDRA TUCKER, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER

While chemical tools that allow control of protein activities and interactions have been in use for a number of decades, a recently emerging field centers on the use of light for protein control, allowing spatial, temporal, and reversible control of protein activity. Here Dr. Tucker will discuss different ways her group is engineering plant photoreceptor proteins as tools to directly control protein activity with light. In particular, she will focus on use of the Arabidopsis photoreceptor cryptochrome 2 (CRY2), which her lab has pioneered as an optogenetic module. Dr. Tucker will discuss recent work using CRY2 to regulate protein-protein interactions, alter protein localization, induce enzyme activity, or disrupt protein function using light.

April 7th, 2016 at 12:15 PM in Clark Center Seminar Room S360

Hosted by:

Bianxiao Cui, Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Pre-Seminar April 5th, 2016 at 12:15 PM in Clark S361