Dan S. Tawfik Weizmann Institute Protein evolution reconstructive approach

Prof.Dan S. Tawfik -- Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science lectures on, Protein evolution -- a reconstructive approach on Feb. 15, 2010 at the RBNI Winter School.

Proteins comprise the machinery components -- the nuts, bolts and wheels, of living systems. They are mostly renowned for their high proficiency and exquisite specificity of action. However, in spite of their robustness and perfection of their mechanism of action, proteins posses a remarkable ability to rapidly change and adopt new functions. Tawfik describes experimental work aimed at reproducing the evolution of new proteins in the laboratory, and unraveling their traits of evolvability. Specifically, he describes how the functional promiscuity of proteins, their conformational plasticity, accelerate their rate of evolution. He shows that local elements of proteins are highly flexible (e.g. active sites) but so are their scaffolds that are considered rigid and utterly conserved. I will address the issue of neutral (or actually, seemingly neutral) mutations, and neutral networks, as facilitators of protein evolution. Finally, he addresses mechanisms for buffering and compensating the deleterious effects of mutations, including compensatory stabilizing mutations and chaperones, that can greatly accelerate the rate of protein evolution.