Difference between revisions of "Team:Paris Bettencourt"

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<h1>STAR CORES</h1>
 
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Revision as of 16:10, 14 October 2018


STAR CORES

Protein scaffolds for star-shaped antimicrobial peptides

Antibiotic overuse in livestock industry is one of the major drivers to the antibiotic resistance evolution; motivating calls to reduce, replace, and re-think the antibiotic usage in animals. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a promising alternative to conventional antibiotics. Recently, a class of chemically-synthesized, star-shaped AMPs has been shown to exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity while maintaining biocompatibility with mammalian cells. In this project, we combinatorially fused a set of known AMPs to structurally diverse, self-assembling protein cores to produce star-shaped complexes. Over 200 fusions were designed and expressed in a cell-free system, then screened for activity, biocompatibility, and membrane selectivity. In addition, we selected 4 AMPs for rational mutagenesis (~12000 variants), and a subset of fusions for molecular dynamic modeling, to identify features of surface charge and star geometry that impact AMP performance. Overall, we aim to create a novel class of selective, non-toxic AMPs which are biologically-produced.

Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI)
Faculty of Medicine Cochin Port-Royal, South wing, 2nd floor
Paris Descartes University
24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 Paris, France
paris-bettencourt-2018@cri-paris.org