INIBIOLP   05426
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOQUIMICAS DE LA PLATA "PROF. DR. RODOLFO R. BRENNER"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
2nd South-American Workshop on Advanced Fluorescence Techniques
Autor/es:
DE GERÓNIMO, EDUARDO
Lugar:
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Reunión:
Workshop; 2nd South-American Workshop on Advanced Fluorescence Techniques: From spectroscopy to microscopy; 2009
Resumen:
I am writing to apply to the South American workshop on Advanced Fluorescence Techniques: From Spectroscopy to Microscopy. This course seems to be of high impact on the development of my current research, since fluorescence spectroscopy is an important tool in many areas of analytical science, with many uses across a broad range of chemical, biochemical and medical investigation. I am performing my PhD studies about the Fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs). FABPs belong to a family of structurally related small (14–15 kDa) cytosolic lipid binding proteins. These proteins are presumably involved in the uptake and targeting of long chain fatty acids (LCFA) to intracellular organelles and metabolic pathways, although their physiological functions are as yet unclear.My interest is focused on two members of the family, Liver and Intestinal fatty acid binding protein (LFABP and IFABP). Previous works in our laboratory, employing fluorescently-tagged fatty acids, have demonstrated that I- and LFABP differ in their ligand specificity and membrane transfer properties. The objectives of my current work are to determinate the binding affinities, equilibrium partitioning between proteins and membranes, and transfer rates from FABPs to artificial membranes of several natural ligands, among them fatty acids and acylCoAs. I am employing Trp containing mutants of LFABP and IFABP which show a high fluorescence sensitivity to ligand binding. The sensitivity of these variants to lipid interaction suggested that these proteins would be effective in directly monitoring ligand transfer to membranes. On the other hand, I use the mutant proteins to investigate the binding of IFABP to anionic phospholipid vesicles, monitoring changes in fluorescence and also fluorescence energy transfer of Trp in the presence of brominated lipids.My current research on FABPs involves several biochemical and biophysical techniques, including fluorescence spectroscopy techniques, through the analysis of FABPs interactions not only with fluorescent or natural ligands but also with artificial lipid vesicles using FRET. In addition, the acquisition of a new spectrofluorometer (Fluorolog-3, Horiba Jobin Yvon) in our laboratory will enable a deep involvement with other fluorescence techniques such as Anisotropy or Time-Resolved Fluorescence.Based on the above mentioned reasons, I am sure that this course will be very useful on the development of my PhD project, since it is aimed to provide the basis of fluorescence spectroscopy techniques and includes the direct utilization of fluorescence instrumentation.