PROJECT #18912 RESEARCH FOR CANCER
FOLDING PERFORMANCE PROFILE

PROJECT SUMMARY

Lasso peptides are a class of RiPPs that are found in bacteria and characterized by a specific knotted structure, called lasso fold.

They have a macrolactam ring formed between the N-terminus and a glutamate or aspartate at position 8 or 9.

The C-terminal tail is trapped within the macrocycle.

This knotted structure confers lasso peptide remarkable thermal and proteolytic stability.

Furthermore, the specific shape and volume enable these peptides to bind important receptors, which cannot be easily targeted by traditional antibodies and small molecule drugs.

Lasso peptides have been promosing drug candidates for treating human diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Elucidating the folding process of lasso peptide and finding the key features regulating the formation of the lasso topology will allow us to enhance their stability and facilate its formation by lasso synthetases.

However, how lasso peptides fold into this lariat knot structure is still unclear.

In this study, we would like to run atomic-level MD simulation for each of 20 lasso peptides with known structures..

PROJECT INFO

Manager(s): Xuenan Mi

Institution: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Project URL: shuklagroup.org

PROJECT WORK UNIT SUMMARY

Atoms: 34,715

Core: 0x22

Status: Public