Biomolecular Interactions

A research group of the Department of Biosciences.

Bioscience Embedded within Chemistry.

Biomolecular interactions, including contacts between biological macromolecules (protein/protein or protein/nucleic acids) and protein-ligand interactions are central to biochemistry. This grouping addresses fundamental questions concerning, for example, the recognition of DNA by bacterial proteins, the biophysical basis of allostery and the supply of metals to proteins. Multiple projects aim to identify targets for new antimicrobial (and antiviral) compounds and typically exploit a wide range of chemical, biochemical, and biophysical methods.

More than half of the members of the group are located in embedded biology laboratories within the Department of Chemistry and PIs have close interactions with the Bioactive Chemistry and Synthesis grouping in chemistry.

Group Coordinator: Prof Paul Denny

Academic Staff: Dr Tim R Blower, Prof Martin Cann, Dr Peter Chivers, Prof Paul Denny, Dr Karrera Djoko, Dr Sushma Grellschied, Prof Ehmke Pohl, Prof. Nigel Robinson, Dr Martin Schröder, Dr Gary Sharples.

Affiliates: Dr Adam Benham, Dr P Chazot, Prof Tony Fawcett, Dr Martin Goldberg, Prof Keith Lindsey, Dr J Liu, Dr David Weinkove

Research Areas

• Biomolecular interactions and protein-ligand interactions play a central role in all our research interest

Staff

Academic Staff

• Dr Tim R Blower
• Professor Martin Cann
• Dr Peter Chivers
• Professor Paul Denny
• Dr Karrera Djoko
• Dr Sushma Grellscheid
• Prof. Ehmke Pohl
• Prof. Nigel Robinson
• Dr Martin Schröder
• Dr Gary Sharples

Research Fellows

• Dr Brian Suarez-Mantilla
• Dr Tessa Young

Publications by staff in this group

Journal Article

• Cross, J.M., Blower, T.R., Kingdon, A.D.H., Pal, R., Picton, D.M. & Walton, J.W. (2020). Anticancer Ruthenium Complexes with HDAC Isoform Selectivity. Molecules 25(10): 2383.
• Britt, Hannah M., García-Herrero, Clara A., Denny, Paul W., Mosely, Jackie A. & Sanderson, John M. (2019). Lytic reactions of drugs with lipid membranes. Chemical Science 10(3): 674-680.
• Ehrmann, Ingrid, Crichton, James H, Gazzara, Matthew R, James, Katherine, Liu, Yilei, Grellscheid, Sushma Nagaraja, Curk, Tomaž, de Rooij, Dirk, Steyn, Jannetta S, Cockell, Simon, Adams, Ian R, Barash, Yoseph & Elliott, David J (2019). An ancient germ cell-specific RNA-binding protein protects the germline from cryptic splice site poisoning. eLife 8: e39304.
• Mellough, Carla B., Bauer, Roman, Collin, Joseph, Dorgau, Birthe, Zerti, Darin, Dolan, David W. P., Jones, Carl M., Izuogu, Osagie G., Yu, Min, Hallam, Dean, Steyn, Jannetta S., White, Kathryn, Steel, David H., Santibanez-Koref, Mauro, Elliott, David J., Jackson, Michael S., Lindsay, Susan, Grellscheid, Sushma & Lako, Majlinda (2019). An integrated transcriptional analysis of the developing human retina. Development 146(2): dev169474.
• Townsend, P.D., Dixon, C.H., Slootweg, E.S., Sukarta O.C.A., Yang, A.W.H., Hughes, T.R., Sharples, G.J., Palsson, L.-O., Takken, F.L.W., Goverse, A. & Cann, M.J. (2018). The intracellular immune receptor Rx1 regulates the DNA-binding activity of a Golden2-like transcription factor. Journal of Biological Chemistry 293(9): 3218-3233.
• Djoko, Karrera Y., Achard, Maud E. S., Phan, Minh-Duy, Lo, Alvin W., Miraula, Manfredi, Prombhul, Sasiprapa, Hancock, Steven J., Peters, Kate M., Sidjabat, Hanna, Harris, Patrick N., Mitić, Nataša, Walsh, Timothy R., Anderson, Gregory J., Shafer, William M., Paterson, David L., Schenk, Gerhard, McEwan, Alastair G. & Schembri, Mark A. (2018). Copper ions and coordination complexes as novel carbapenem adjuvants. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 62(2): e02280-17.
• Huang, H-T., Bobst, C. E., Iwig, J. S., Chivers, P. T., Kaltashov, I. & Maroney, M. J. (2018). Co(II) and Ni(II) binding of the Escherichia coli transcriptional repressor RcnR orders its N-terminus, alters helix dynamics, and reduces DNA affinity. Journal of Biological Chemistry 293(1): 324-332.
• Linthwaite, V.L., Janus, J.M., Brown, A.P., Wong-Pascua, D., O’Donoghue, A.C., Porter, A., Treumann, A., Hodgson, D.R.W. & Cann, M.J. (2018). The identification of carbon dioxide mediated protein post-translational modifications. Nature Communications 9: 3092.
• Buskin, Adriana, Zhu, Lili, Chichagova, Valeria, Basu, Basudha, Mozaffari-Jovin, Sina, Dolan, David, Droop, Alastair, Collin, Joseph, Bronstein, Revital, Mehrotra, Sudeep, Farkas, Michael, Hilgen, Gerrit, White, Kathryn, Pan, Kuan-Ting, Treumann, Achim, Hallam, Dean, Bialas, Katarzyna, Chung, Git, Mellough, Carla, Ding, Yuchun, Krasnogor, Natalio, Przyborski, Stefan, Zwolinski, Simon, Al-Aama, Jumana, Alharthi, Sameer, Xu, Yaobo, Wheway, Gabrielle, Szymanska, Katarzyna, McKibbin, Martin, Inglehearn, Chris F., Elliott, David J., Lindsay, Susan, Ali, Robin R., Steel, David H., Armstrong, Lyle, Sernagor, Evelyne, Urlaub, Henning, Pierce, Eric, Lührmann, Reinhard, Grellscheid, Sushma-Nagaraja, Johnson, Colin A. & Lako, Majlinda (2018). Disrupted alternative splicing for genes implicated in splicing and ciliogenesis causes PRPF31 retinitis pigmentosa. Nature Communications 9(1): 4234.
• Foster, A.W., Pernil, R., Patterson, C.J., Scott, A.J.P., Pålsson, L.-O., Pal, R., Cummins, I., Chivers, P.T., Pohl, E. & Robinson, N.J. (2017). A tight tunable range for Ni(II) sensing and buffering in cells. Nature Chemical Biology 13(4): 409-414.
• Armstrong, M. C., Sestak, S., Ali, A. A., Sagini, H. A. M., Baty, K., Treumann, A. & Schröder, M. (2017). Bypass of activation loop phosphorylation by aspartate 836 in activation of the endoribonuclease activity of Ire1. Molecular and Cellular Biology 37(16): e00655-16.
• Djoko, Karrera Y., Phan, Minh-Duy, Peters, Kate M., Walker, Mark J., Schembri, Mark A. & McEwan, Alastair G. (2017). Interplay between tolerance mechanisms to copper and acid stress in Escherichia coli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(26): 6818-6823.
• Osman, Deenah, Foster, Andrew W., Chen, Junjun, Svedaite, Kotryna, Steed, Jonathan W., Lurie-Luke, Elena, Huggins, Thomas G. & Robinson, Nigel J. (2017). Fine control of metal concentrations is necessary for cells to discern zinc from cobalt. Nature Communications 8: 1884.
• Mantilla, Brian S., Marchese, Letícia, Casas-Sánchez, Aitor, Dyer, Naomi A., Ejeh, Nicholas, Biran, Marc, Bringaud, Frédéric, Lehane, Michael J., Acosta-Serrano, Alvaro & Silber, Ariel M. (2017). Proline Metabolism is Essential for Trypanosoma brucei brucei Survival in the Tsetse Vector. PLOS Pathogens 13(1): e1006158.
• Brown, M., Strudwick, N., Suwara, M., Sutcliffe, L. K., Mihai, A. D., Ali, A. A., Watson, J. N. & Schröder, M. (2016). An initial phase of JNK activation inhibits cell death early in the endoplasmic reticulum stress response. Journal of Cell Science 129(12): 2317-2328.
• Osman, D., Piergentili, C., Chen, J., Chakrabarti, B., Foster, A., Lurie-Luke, E., Huggins, T. & Robinson, N. (2015). Generating a metal-responsive transcriptional regulator to test what confers metal-sensing in cells. Journal of Biological Chemistry 290(32): 19806-19822.
• Townsend, P.D., Rodgers, T.L., Glover, L.C., Korhonen, H.J., Richards, S.A., Colwell, L.J., Pohl, E., Wilson, M.R., Hodgson, D.R.W., McLeish, T.C.B. & Cann, M.J. (2015). The role of protein-ligand contacts in allosteric regulation of the Escherichia coli Catabolite Activator Protein. Journal of Biological Chemistry 290(36): 22225-22235.
• Fenyk, Stepan, Townsend, Philip D., Dixon, Christopher H., Spies, Gerhard B., de San Eustaquio Campillo, Alba, Slootweg, Erik J., Westerhof, Lotte B., Gawehns, Fleur K.K., Knight, Marc R., Sharples, Gary J., Goverse, Aska, Pålsson, Lars-Olof, Takken, Frank L.W. & Cann, Martin J. (2015). The Potato Nucleotide-Binding Leucine-Rich Repeat (NLR) Immune Receptor Rx1 is a Pathogen Dependent DNA-Deforming Protein. Journal of Biological Chemistry 290(41): 24945-24960.
• Djoko, Karrera Y., Goytia, Maira M., Donnelly, Paul S., Schembri, Mark A., Shafer, William M. & McEwan, Alastair G. (2015). Copper(II)-Bis(Thiosemicarbazonato) Complexes as Antibacterial Agents: Insights into Their Mode of Action and Potential as Therapeutics. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 59(10): 6444-6453.
• Mantilla, Brian S., Paes, Lisvane S., Pral, Elizabeth M. F., Martil, Daiana E., Thiemann, Otavio H., Fernández-Silva, Patricio, Bastos, Erick L. & Silber, Ariel M. (2015). Role of Δ1-Pyrroline-5-Carboxylate Dehydrogenase Supports Mitochondrial Metabolism and Host-Cell Invasion ofTrypanosoma cruzi. Journal of Biological Chemistry 290(12): 7767-7790.
• Young, Tessa R., Kirchner, Angie, Wedd, Anthony G. & Xiao, Zhiguang (2014). An integrated study of the affinities of the Aβ16 peptide for Cu(I) and Cu(II): implications for the catalytic production of reactive oxygen species. Metallomics 6(3): 505-517.