Dr Christopher Prior, Durham University

Academic webpage: https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/christopher-prior/

Title: Predicting protein dynamics using writhe

Abstract: The advent of AlphaFold has steered the fundamental questions on protein structure towards understanding their dynamics in their native state, rather than the static crystal states routinely predicted. One critical tool in our arsenal is small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) which allows, with significant modelling, for the imaging of protein dynamics in solution. However, modelling proteins by standard force field methods is inhibitively computationally expensive, so alternative methods are required for effective and routine interpretation of SAXS data. I will present a method and code for SAXS interpretation (Carbonara), which used constraints on the geometry and topology of proteins which we have derived from structural data. Hopefully it will be of interest for the potential audience at St Andrews that the fundamental underlying quantity in this method is the writhe, a quantity routinely used in solar and astrophysical modelling to quantify and constrain the topology of magnetic flux ropes. In doing so I will briefly highlight the interesting history of how the fields of long chain biology and solar magnetic fields have both provided insight to each other.