April 21 , 2006
Cheryl Arrowsmith (Ontario Cancer Institute, Banting and Best Department of Medical Research & Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto)
Structural Genomics Consortium

Structural Genomics and Proteomics projects generate structures of many uncharacterized proteins for which there is no known function, as well as structures of "orphan" members of protein gene families. Often the 3D structure can provide strong clues to a biochemical function that can be readily tested experimentally. Accidental & intentional co-crystallization with small molecules can also lead to functional hypotheses or de-orphanization. Furthermore, these large scale projects also purify many proteins for which structures are not solved, but for which annotations are still lacking. Therefore, in parallel with our structural efforts we have also developed an array of catalytic and biochemical screens that are applied to each purified protein, whether or not its structure can be determined. Strategies will be presented for (1) rapid experimental confirmation of structure-based hypotheses, (2) identification of functional ligands, (3) identification of "practical ligands" (ligands that bind and stabilize proteins for structure determination) and (4) catalytic activities of un-or under-characterized proteins.