We are a molecular biophysics group studying the relationship between the 3D structure and function in proteins, exploring particularly stress response mechanisms in biological systems. We take advantage of the large wild type and modern cereal seed collection at Sabanci University and work on proteins synthesized in these plants in the response to heavy metal, draught and light stress. One line our research is on G-protein signaling pathways and another is concerned with metallothioneins (and other novel proteins) in metal homeostasis and heavy metal stress response in wheat.
We specialize in structural techniques based on synchrotron radiation including X-ray scattering, diffraction and absorption but also heavily use circular dichroism spectropolarimetry and dynamic light scattering. New proteins are identified through comparison of gene expression patterns of tolerant and sensitive genotypes grown under specific stress conditions. Experimental structure determination is carried out on recombinant proteins purified from bacterial or yeast hosts. We also combine ab initio techniques with experimental work to model the structure and predict functional features of proteins when these are not well defined. Our goal is to confirm the assigned functions by in vivo overexpression or by RNA silencing and contribute development of reliable structural markers for predicting function.
Applications of our work would range from designing new systems for detecting heavy metal pollution and remediation to development of plants with resistance to several stress factors.