- Head of Research Group: Prof. Zoltán GÁSPÁRI
- Members of the Group: Dr. Bálint PÉTERFIA, Dr. Zsófia DOBSON-KÁLMÁN, Eszter NAGY-KANTA, Anna SÁNTA, Fanni FARKAS, András László SZABÓ, Soma VARGA
- Contact: gaspari.zoltan@itk.ppke.hu
- Our research focuses on experimental and computational characterization of proteins involved in synaptic signal transduction. The postsynaptic density (PSD) is a dense and dynamic protein network contributing to the molecular processes behind learning and memory. Multivalent interactions, where two partners can bind each other at multiple sites, are especially important in forming the PSD. In our laboratory, we use biotechnology to produce protein constructs that are in turn investigated by various biophysical methods to decipher their structure, internal dynamics and partner binding properties.
- The obtained experimental results are integrated into different molecule- and systems-level computational models to understand the mechanistic details of the molecular function of individual domains and segments, as well as the organization of the postsynaptic protein network at a larger scale.
Representative structures of different clusters obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of the PDZ1-PDZ2 tandem of the PSD-95 protein. The different clusters exhibit distinct domain-domain interactions and their observed abundance during the simulations depends on the presence or absence of the PDZ ligands.
