BIOLOGICAL MACROMOLECULES
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- FRANCESCO BERNARDI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/10
Training objectives
- Integration of biochemistry and molecular biology to improve knowledge on macromolecular complexes and their organization in living cells and organisms, with special reference on methods and experimental issues.
Students will be guided through the course to deeply understand the relationships between structure and function of macromolecules, and their regulatory strategies.
Seminars are aimed at understanding major and recent advances on investigation of the macromolecules and their functions.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The student:
- knows advanced biochemical and molecular biology terminology;
- knows the biochemical mechanisms and molecular biology of biological processes;
- knows the structure of biological macromolecules;
- knows the modern experimental approaches to study nucleic acids, proteins and their complexes.
ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The students are able to:
- use advanced biochemical and molecular biology terminology;
- to understand and evaluate the impact of structural modifications of biological macromolecules on their biological function and on the biological pathway
- to understand and predict the impact of physiologic and experimental variations on the main biological pathways.
- to exploit the knowledge of specific techniques to investigate proteins, nucleic acids and macromolecular complexes to plan experiments focused on specific questions Prerequisites
- PRE-REQUISITES
No formal propedeuticity is required. However, basic knowledge of protein and nucleic acid structure, of basic methods in Biochemistry and Cell and Molecular Biology are needed. As an introduction, specific textbooks chapters and sections are suggested for better understanding of lectures. Course programme
- Transposons - L1 complexes and transposition mechanisms, experimental models. Improved transposons. Negative regulation of transposon spreading, transcription/translation. PiRNA Chromatin modification. Methylation of DNA and Proteins. Tudor domains. Structure and post-translational changes of chromatin, Nucleosome epigenetics and remodelling. Crispr Genomic Screening of L1 Activators and inhibitors. Protein and Protein Complexes classification.
Oxygen sensing. 2,3BPG balance. Mitochondrial Complexes in Glomus cells. CO and H2S enzymatic generation. Hif-1, PHD and VHL complexes. Tissue specific regulation. Erythropoietin pathway. Erythropoietin mimetic molecules, EMPs. Regulation of protein synthesis by hypoxia. Regulation of miRNA synthesis by hypoxia.
Regulation of protease complexes. Adhesive and multimeric plasma proteins: VWF interaction with platelet receptors. Regulation by ADAMTS13. Exosites, recognition and specific protease activity. Aptamer/antibody inhibition and activation.
Thrombin activation by staphylocoagulase. Phage display and peptides for the inhibition of complexes in the coagulation activation.
VEGF, alternative splicing and aptamer-based inhibition.
CoV 19 macromolecules, Spike, proteolytic activation. Multiprotein protease structure and inhibition. Interazione Spike-ACE2 interaction, natural and engineered structures, mutations and structure variation. Binding and affinity, natural and recombinant antibodies - Structure, epitopes and functional inhibition.
RNA Methylation complexes, M6A (Seminar). Didactic methods
- The course is structured in frontal lectures and seminars, jointly given by PhD students and teacher, focused on recent publications with special reference to course topics and methodological issues. More specifically, the course comprises 48 hours - about 40 frontal lectures and 8 hours for lectures/seminars. Covid issues have moved the course toward remote teaching and learning
Learning assessment procedures
- The aim of the exam is to test the level of knowledge and deepening of the topics of the course program and the reasoning skills developed by the student on lecture issues. The assessment is expressed in thirtieths (minimum grade 18).
With the exception of students with disabilities, the exam is written, and consists of 3 open questions on the main topics of the course. Each response value can score up to 10. In any case, the exam is not considered passed whether the student scores =4 in two questions. Covid-related issues have also pushed toward oral remote exams, which however mantain the same features. Reference texts
- Advanced textbooks of biochemistry and molecular biology.
Examples. Molecular Biology of the Cell, H.Lodish et al; "Biochemistry", Berg-Tynoczko-Stryer;
"Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry: International Edition", Nelson-Cox. The Unife and Department websites contain copy of the lecture slides and notes. In addition, lectures have been recorded in streaming and made available to the students in the specific "Classroom" site, together with copy of the slides.
