How Proteins Find and Bind Each Other

Scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona reveal the dynamical mechanism of protein association in atomic detail. ' 167/2017 from Jun 22, 2017 Scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and University Pompeu Fabra (UPF) Barcelona, have for the first time, simulated the association and dissociation of protein molecules in atomic detail, and validated their results with experimental data. 'The simulations revealed many previously unknown details on how proteins find and bind each other. But the most valuable result of our study is the demonstration that studying protein-protein association in atomic detail is possible,' explains Dr. Nuria Plattner, a postdoctoral researcher at Freie Unievrsität Berlin and lead author of the study. This achievement is useful not just for biology textbooks, but it also opens the door to understanding the details of viral infections, the inner workings of the immune system, and many other problems with biomedical or biotechnological relevance. 'Proteins and other molecules move around in our cells, and they can associate to and dissociate from each other,' explains Prof. Frank Noé, a computational scientist at Freie Unversität and mathematician at Reseach Center Matheon who led the research project at Freie Universität Berlin. Human muscles, for example, consist of proteins that have associated to each other so as to form long fibers.