Structural Biology seminars

Actinoporins are pore-forming proteins from cnidarians that assemble into membrane-spanning complexes. Their preference for sphingomyelin-rich membranes and enhancement by cholesterol make them useful models of protein–lipid interactions. Gašper Šolinc will discuss the actinoporin-like protein Fav from Orbicella faveolata, whose funnel-shaped pores incorporate numerous lipids, with up to fifteen resolved lipids per subunit in the upper leaflet. The findings distinguish lipids involved in initial membrane binding from those stabilizing interfaces between protein subunits. Changing membrane composition yields different pore stoichiometries while preserving the protomer fold and lipid arrangement, linking membrane thickness and lipid composition to assembly. Comparisons with FraC and StnII structures address sphingomyelin recognition through hydrogen bonding and cation–π interactions, and why these pores are better understood as protein–lipid complexes.

This webinar explores computational and structure-based vaccine design, comparing prefusion stabilisation of vaccine antigens with epitope scaffolding onto non-antigen protein backbones. It discusses the advantages and limitations of both strategies. No background in computational protein design is required; familiarity with vaccine antigens and viral glycoproteins is helpful. Free online webinar; advance registration and details: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/events/strategies-computational-vaccine-design-prefusion-stabilisation-epitope-focussing/

Charisse Winston and Alysa Kasen discuss approaches to detecting and understanding Alzheimer’s disease beyond amyloid alone. Winston examines neuronal extracellular vesicles in blood and saliva as potential accessible biomarkers, including their relevance to risk in underrepresented populations. Kasen explores how tau filament structure and post-translational modifications in its surrounding regions influence seeding competence and biological activity. Together the presentations connect molecular and structural mechanisms with earlier detection and the interpretation of tau-related neurodegeneration.

Open biological data resources connect complementary evidence about proteins involved in infection. Using influenza haemagglutinin, this seminar demonstrates sequence and functional annotations in UniProt, three-dimensional cryo-EM maps in EMDB, and experimental and predicted structures in PDBe and the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database. Participants will learn to browse, retrieve and interpret these data and follow connections between the resources. The session also considers how accessible biological data supports infection research and pandemic preparedness. It is aimed at students and researchers in protein biology, structural biology and bioinformatics; basic knowledge of sequence and structure formats is useful.

Protein-structure prediction can help distinguish competing gene models. Studies of two fungi and an apicoplast compare original and manually curated annotations, finding that structure-derived scores favour curated models when predictions differ in structured domains. These signals complement sequence-domain analysis but offer little help for uncertainty in potentially disordered regions. The presentation also examines Protenix-mini as a faster alternative retaining discriminatory power, complete-proteome scoring, and a NextFlow pipeline intended to make the workflow usable. It considers applications when transcriptomic evidence is limited and the remaining limitations of structure-based annotation.

Interpreting human missense variants requires connecting genomic coordinates with protein sequences, structures and functional evidence. ProtVar integrates annotations and predictions from UniProt, Ensembl, PDBe, Open Targets and AlphaFoldDB, extending variant lookup to discovery across more than 500 million potential missense variants. This seminar demonstrates natural-language searches using diseases, pathways and drug responses, multi-criteria filtering, structural visualisation and data export. Participants will learn to prioritise variants, interpret their structural and functional effects, and retrieve data through web downloads or the REST API. The session serves geneticists, drug-discovery researchers and computational biologists; undergraduate molecular biology and genetics are recommended.

Bacteriophage genomes offer a large reservoir of enzymes adapted to extreme environments. This seminar examines endolysins, enzymes that break down bacterial cell walls, as potential antimicrobial agents for agriculture, food production and sanitation. Cold-adapted variants could support cleaning at lower temperatures, while heat-tolerant variants may serve fermentation, food processing and alternatives to antibiotics. Amy Wiseman presents research combining metagenomic sequences from Icelandic hot springs and Arctic seawater with AlphaFold and other prediction methods, biophysical experiments, X-ray crystallography and biochemical characterization. The work investigates candidate cold-adapted and thermophilic endolysins, reveals unexpected structural features, and considers what these features imply for evolution, environmental adaptation and enzyme function. The talk connects sequence mining and structural prediction with experimental validation, biotechnology applications and rational enzyme design.