The computational analysis of antibodies

Il 15/01/2016 ore 14.30 - 15.30

Sala Conferenze CNR, Via P. Castellino, 111 80131 Napoli

Anna Tramontano from "La Sapienza" University in Rome, will give a seminar on the structure of antibodies.

Antibodies or immunoglobulins are fascinating molecules from both a functional and structural point of view. They have the ability to recognize virtually any foreign molecule with exquisite specificity and very high affinity. These properties are brought about by their 3D architecture, which consists of a tetramer of two identical pairs of polypeptide chains: the heavy and light chains. Each chain includes homologous domains that have a similar tertiary structure to each other. With few exceptions, two domains are present in the light chain—one variable and one constant—and four or more domains are present in the heavy chain—one variable and three or more that are constant. The two N-terminal domains of the polypeptide chains are called variable domains (VL and VH, respectively), and they are responsible for antigen binding.

Predicting their structure from the amino acid sequence has several important applications. The structural models can be used in docking simulations to identify the recognized region of the antigen, as basis for the rational design of selectable libraries, and as an aid in engineering antibodies elicited in model systems for use in human therapy with the aim of reducing or abolishing unwanted and dangerous immunogenic. Anna Tramontano’s group has developed methods to predict the structure of antibodies, to identify the specific residues they use to interact with the antigen and to accelerate the humanization process. They have also shown how the predicted structure of the antigen-binding site can be used to classify antibodies found in cohorts of patients with diseases characterized by a clonal expansion of neoplastic mature B lymphocytes and how this classification might correlate with the pathological phenotype and the disease prognosis.

The case of antibodies is, in my opinion, a very good example of the ability of computational structural biology to provide useful contributions to biomedical research.

Biosketch

Anna Tramontano was trained as a physicist but she soon became fascinated by the complexity of biology and by the promises of computational biology. After a post-doctoral period at UCSF, she joined the Biocomputing Programme of the EMBL in Heidelberg. In 1990 she moved back to Italy to work in the Merck Research Laboratories near Rome. In 2001, she returned to the academic world as a Chair Professor of Biochemistry in "La Sapienza" University in Rome where she continues to pursue her scientific interests on protein structure prediction and analysis in the Department of Physics. She has been a member of the Scientific Council of the ERC, is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and sits on several Scientific Advisory Boards. She also co-organizes the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) initiative and is Associate Editor of Bioinformatics, Proteins, PLoS One and Current Opinion in Structural Biology.

She has published more than 200 scientific articles and five books in the field of computational biology.

Organizzato da:
IBP, Cnr

Referente organizzativo:
Maria Rosaria Coscia
CNR - Istituto di biochimica delle proteine
Via P. Castellino, 111 80131 Napoli
mr.coscia@ibp.cnr.it
081/6132556

Modalità di accesso: ingresso libero