RSC School Seminar - Prof Sally-Ann Poulsen (Griffith University)
Title: Metabolic chemical probes & native mass spectrometry in biomedical research
Speakers
Event series
Content navigation
Description
Metabolic chemical probes & native mass spectrometry in biomedical research
Abstract
Metabolic chemical probes are small molecule reagents that utilise naturally occurring biosynthetic enzymes for in situ incorporation into biomolecules of interest. These reagents can be used to label, detect, and track important biological processes within living cells including cell proliferation. A limitation of current chemical probes which have largely focused on mammalian cells is that they often cannot be applied to other organisms due to metabolic differences. This presentation will discuss our efforts to develop metabolic chemical probes for assessing DNA proliferation in Plasmodium falciparum, the most significant of the human infecting Plasmodium species causing malaria infections and death. The new probes exhibit robust labelling characteristics of replicating wild type parasites and may be used in any laboratory that cultures P. falciparum with access to standard light microscope or flow cytometry facilities, importantly without requirement for genetic modification of the parasite. This presentation will also demonstrate the development of native mass spectrometry (nMS) as a platform technology for the study of folded biomolecules and their noncovalent interactions with small molecules within the mass spectrometer.
Location
Building 136, Lvl 3, STB S1