Exploring the Folding Energy Landscape of Leptin: A Pierced Lasso Topology Protein

• Grant number: 24/21775-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biophysics - Molecular Biophysics
• Principal Investigator: Vitor Barbanti Pereira Leite
• Grantee: Vicente Christiano Filho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/07231-7 - Plasticity and functional modulation of intrinsically disordered proteins, AP.TEM

Abstract

The theory of energy landscapes has significantly contributed to the understanding of complex molecular systems, such as the protein folding problem. This project will focus on studying the energy landscape of proteins using simplified computational models (coarse-grained models) and statistical physics approaches. The central idea is related to visualizing the energy surface using the Energy Landscape Visualization Method (ELViM). ELViM was designed for visualizing the protein folding funnel and shows great potential for detailing molecular mechanisms by going beyond one-dimensional representation. Specifically, wewill apply this methodology to leptin, a protein with a condition in its native structure known as Pierced Lasso Topology (PLT). Studying this uniquely folded protein will help explore the applicability limits of ELViM.