9 JUIN 2017 - 13H

Universal genetic code as a key for understanding RNA-protein interactions

Bojan Zagrovic, Département de Biologie Computationnelle et Structurelle, Université de Vienne, Autriche.

Lieu : Amphi Charpak (LPNHE), tour 22 (RdC), campus Jussieu.

Résumé : The relationship between mRNA and protein sequences as embodied in the universal genetic code is a cornerstone of modern-day molecular biology. In this presentation, I will provide evidence supporting a novel claim that the genetic code can actually be seen as a Rosetta stone for understanding mRNA-protein interactions in general. Conversely, I will defend a claim that RNA-protein interactions could have been an important driving force behind the origin of the genetic code. Specifically, we have recently revealed a robust, statistically significant matching between the composition of mRNA coding sequences and the nucleobase-binding preferences of their cognate protein sequences. For example, purine-density profiles of mRNA sequences mirror the guanine-affinity profiles of their cognate protein sequences with quantitative accuracy (median Pearson correlation coefficient |R| = 0.80 across the entire human proteome). Overall, our results support as well as redefine the stereochemical hypothesis concerning the code’s origin, the idea that it evolved from direct interactions between amino acids and the appropriate bases. Moreover, our findings support the possibility of direct, complementary, co-aligned interactions between mRNAs and their cognate proteins even in present-day cells, especially if both are unstructured, with implications extending to different facets of nucleic-acid/protein biology. 

Le site web du laboratoire de Bojan Zagrovic

About the speaker

BZ has been the head of the Laboratory of Computational Biophysics at the University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria since 2010. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard in 1997 and a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford in 2004. In the group of Vijay S. Pande at Stanford, he used computational techniques to study protein folding and was one of the founders of the distributed-computing Folding@Home project, which has grown to include more than 500,000 volunteers from all around the world. During his postdoctoral stay at ETH Zurich, he worked with Wilfred F. van Gunsteren and Philippe H. Hunenberger on different aspects of biomolecular interactions and structure determination. From 2007-2010 he was a group leader at and the scientific director of the Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences in Split, Croatia. He was the recipient of the McGraw-Hill Italia Award of the Protein Society in 2003, was named one of 30 Tomorrow’s PIs (up-and-coming young researchers in molecular biology worldwide) by Genome Technology magazine in 2008, was awarded an ERC Starting Independent grant in 2011 and is a member of the Young Chapter of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 2013. His current work focuses on elucidating the fundamental principles of RNA-protein interactions and their relationship with the structure of the genetic code.