Events

Seminar on

Probing the folded conformations of random-sequence RNA and proteins

by

Prof. Erik Schultes, Hedgehog Research LLC

Abstract

Genomic sequences code for RNAs and proteins that have precise structural properties mediating specific biochemical functions. Since the early days of molecular biology, it has been assumed that sequences chosen at random from sequence space (and therefore without having the benefit of natural selection) would be disordered and without biochemical function.
Yet the observed sequence diversity in biology and experiments whereby new functional sequences are isolated from synthetic combinatorial libraries suggest that the opposite - sequence space must be densely packed with well-structured and potentially useful sequences. I will discuss results from our in vitro experiments that explicitly probe the conformations of 20 individual random-sequence polyribonucleotides (85mers) and 30 individual random-sequence polypeptides (up to 70mers) using standard physical and chemical methods. Our results clearly demonstrate that structural properties usually assumed to be evolutionarily derived (such as native folding) are actually very common among randomly-generated sequences.

This seminar is organised within the School on High Dimensional Design an Data Modelling organised at ECLT by Prof. Irene Poli and Prof. Phil Brown.