Viral Protein-Nucleic Acid Interactions

                        Rosalind Franklin Laboratory          
                      of Structural Molecular Biology

   Principal Investigator: Dr RENOS SAVVA - HEFCE Funded Research Fellow

       

Research

Viral proteins that interact with nucleotides and nucleic acids are important in a
number of respects. They provide a means for the virus to subvert the cellular
environment in the host thus ensuring optimal conditions for replication.
Replication of the virus is absolutely dependent on such proteins and they are
often smaller and less complicated in terms of their subunit composition than
cellular analogues. From a structural biologist’s point of view, they are ideal
material to study the structural basis of fundamental enzymatic processes. Due
to the innate physical differences between viral and host cell enzymes of similar
function and their key role in viral propagation, they also provide an obvious
target for the rational design of antiviral therapies.

The group works on the nucleotide and nucleic acid binding and modification
proteins of human Herpesviruses and T-type bacteriophages, with an aim to
studying the fundamental link between structure and function.

We also work on improving recombinant protein expression in E.coli using a
combination of bioinformatic and experimental methods.

Collaborations

The group is actively involved in a number of collaborations with laboratories
outside the School of Crystallography predominantly, though not exclusively,
on structure to function relationships of nucleic acid binding proteins. The group
is also involved in collaborative links as part of the Institute of Structural
Molecular Biology. Informal enquiries concerning collaborations are
welcome.