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“Structure and function of myosin light chains.”
Marieke J. Bloemink, School of Biosciences
Science Research Funding 2012/2013 Tranche 1.
The SRF funding has been used to partially finance the collection of preliminary data needed
to prepare a full grant application to the British Heart Foundation (3 year BHF project grant).
Background
Myosin Light Chain proteins (LC) are important for the development of force during muscle
contraction, but their exact role in this process is not clear. In cardiac muscle, LC mutations
have been linked to the development of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a serious heart
condition. Currently there is no high resolution structure of the cardiac LC and this severely
limits our ability to understand how mutations in the LC affect cardiac muscle contraction.
The aim of the intended BHF project is to determine the high resolution structure of cardiac
LC using NMR spectroscopy in order to understand their function and malfunction.
Outcome:
The awarded sum was spent on the purchase of
15
N-labelled ammonium sulphate. This
compound was added to the growth medium of E.coli in order to produce
15
N-labelled
recombinant light chain proteins, which are needed for the collection of preliminary NMR
data. The costs of the NMR measurements unfortunately were not awarded in this SRF round
so I had to find another way of funding these, since the School of Biosciences charges all its
NMR users for NMR spectrometer time. I have now collected the preliminary NMR data
which will be included in a full grant application to the British Heart Foundation (3 year BHF
project grant) which I intend to submit in June.
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