Seminar by Dr. Enrico Luchinat

University of Bologna (Italy)

In-cell NMR in human cells: from protein maturation to real-time ligand screening

In-cell NMR provides insights on biological macromolecules in their native cellular environment at atomic resolution. At CERM, we developed an approach for expressing and labelling proteins directly in human cells, which is ideally applied to monitor functional processes such protein folding and maturation, metal binding, chemical modifications, and interactions with ligands or with specific partners. Recently, we applied the methodology to protein-observed ligand screening in living cells, where it can provide critical information on drug penetrance and selectivity, which are related to drug potency. Finally, the development of a bioreactor enabled monitoring the intracellular ligand binding kinetics by real time in-cell NMR.