Category: Research
We were lucky to have Alejandra Medina Montero join the lab this summer as a scholar on the BU STaRS program. Alejandra’s project focused on measuring the ability of small molecules to stabilize antibody light chain variable domains in vitro. She worked hard and had a great time in Boston, and is now back to […]
How does a curved molecule fit into a flat binding pocket? Structural basis for the stabilization of amyloidogenic immunoglobulin light chains by hydantoins. Nicholas L. Yan, Diogo Santos-Martins, Enrico Rennella, Brittany B. Sanchez, Jason S. Chen, Lewis E. Kay, Ian A. Wilson, Gareth J. Morgan, Stefano Forli, Jeffery W. Kelly Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters […]
We have developed a new method for measuring protein stability that can be used in high throughput screens. We hope that this will be a useful alternative to existing methods for researchers looking for molecules that bind to and stabilize proteins. Details are in our new paper. Proteins are dynamic, flexible polymers that can form […]
Two manuscripts were published last week describing high-resolution 3D structures of light chain amyloid fibrils extracted from patient heart tissue. Swuec and coworkers solved the structure of a fibril derived from a lambda 6-57 light chain using cryo electron microscopy (cryoEM); Radameker and coworkers did the same for a lambda 1-44 light chain. These structures […]
Great news – we’ve been awarded a pilot grant to study gene expression in AL amyloidosis patient-derived plasma cells, and to sequence circulating tumor DNA from these patients’ blood. The funding comes from the American Cancer Society via an institutional grant to BU. Our long-term goal is to ask how genetic changes in plasma cells […]
Our paper using NMR to study the dynamics of antibody light chains has just been published online. We collaborated with Enrico Rennella and Lewis Kay at the University of Toronto, who are experts in NMR spectroscopy, to ask how forces within and between the domains of a full-length light chain dimer contribute to the stability […]