Speaker
Description
Polysaccharides are semi-flexible polymers composed of sugar residues with a myriad of important functions in-vivo, including structural support, energy storage and immunogenicity. The local conformation of such chains is a crucial factor governing their interactions. Traditionally this conformation has only been directly accessible in the solid-state, using crystallographic techniques such as fibre diffraction. However, improvements in the quality of synchrotron-based X-ray scattering data means that conformation-dependent features can now be measured in solution. In tandem, scattering predictions based on structures initiated from existing fibre x-ray diffraction data, and then re-animated using molecular dynamics, can now be performed.
Our group has recently measured the detailed small-angle x-ray scattering from a variety of anionic oligo- and poly-saccharides in solution. This talk will specifically present data obtained from experiments carried out on homogalacturonan, alginate and carrageenan and discuss their comparison with predictions based on our molecular dynamics simulations. The remarkable agreement found provides unequivocal evidence for the validity of our real-space atomistic models of the solution state structures. This technique is expected to be universally applicable for polysaccharides that consist of comparatively stiff glycosidic linkages, and to have extensive relevance for a number of biological macromolecules, including glycosylated proteins.
| Condition of submission | Yes |
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| Which facility did you use for your research | Australian Synchrotron |
| Presenter Gender | Man |
| Level of Expertise | Experienced Researcher |
