Understanding and improving the properties
of fluorescent proteins by light-NMR
Photo-transformable fluorescent proteins (PTFP) are crucial markers for an increasing range of applications in advanced fluorescence microscopy and biotechnology, but their subtle photophysical behavior remains largely suboptimal. Thus, there is a strong need for enhanced variants optimized for particular applications. PTFPs engineering most often exploits structural information available from X-ray crystallography, missing essential information on PTFP’s conformational dynamics that typically drive photophysical properties. This PhD project will establish solution NMR spectroscopy combined with in-situ sample illumination as a new paradigm for fluorescent protein research, contributing atomic-resolution information on photodynamics, under various experimental conditions, in cellular environments, and over a wide range of time scales.
Relevant recent publications:
De Zitter, E., D. Thédié, et al. (2019) Mechanistic investigation of mEos4b reveals a strategy to reduce track interruption in sptPALM. Nat. Methods. 16: 707–710.
Christou, N.E., and B. Brutscher. (2018) BEST and SOFAST experiments for resonance assignment of histidine and tyrosine side chains in 13C/15N labeled proteins. J. Biomol. NMR. 72: 115–124.
Christou, N.-E., Ayala, I., Giandoreggio-Barranco, K. Byrdin, M. Adam, V., Bourgeois, D., and Brutscher B. (2019) NMR reveals light-induced changes in the dynamics of a photoswitchable fluorescent protein. Biophys. J., 117: 2087-2100.
Grenoble is situated in the middle of the beautiful French Alps, and the IBS provides a unique environment for state-of-the-art integrated cellular and structural biology (http://www.ibs.fr/). The PhD work will be carried out in collaboration with 2 research groups at IBS headed by D. Bourgeois (PIXEL) and B.Brutscher (NMR).
Candidates should have a master in either physics, chemistry, or molecular biology.
There is no secured funding for this position. The candidate is expected to apply for a doctoral contract at the Physics Doctorate School (Grenoble) and the CEA (France).
If you are interested, please send a CV, and a motivation letter to B. Brutscher (bernhard.brutscher@ibs.fr)
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Dominique BOURGEOIS