Unit on Molecular Recognition and Assembly

Head: Donald C. Rau

Our laboratory focuses on elucidating the linkage of the forces, structure, and dynamics of biologically important assemblies. The next challenge in structural biology is to understand the physics of interactions between molecules in aqueous solution. To take advantage of the increasing availability of protein and nucleic acid structures, we will need to link structure with binding energetics and specificity. A fundamental and quantitative knowledge of intermolecular forces is necessary for (1) understanding the strength and specificity of interactions among biologically important macromolecules that control cellular function and (2) rationally designing agents that can effectively compete with those interactions associated with disease. We have shown that experimentally measured forces differ from those predicted by current, conventionally accepted theories and have interpreted the observed forces as evidence of the dominating contribution of water-structuring energetics. Using osmotic stress and X-ray scattering, we directly measure forces between biological macromolecules in macroscopic condensed arrays. To investigate the role of water in the interaction between individual molecules, we measure and correlate changes in the binding energies and hydration accompanying specific recognition reactions of biologically important macromolecules, particularly those relevant to sequence-specific DNA-protein complexes.

Resources

• Employee Listing
• E-Mail the Lab: raud@mail.nih.gov
• UMRA Home Page