Speaker: Dr. Bao-Gen Duan, Beijing Computational Science Research Center    

Abstract: Nucleotide selection is essential for fidelity control in gene expression. In T7 RNA polymerase transcription, atomistic molecular dynamic simulation is used to study nucleotide selection at pre-insertion state. Calculation shows a binding free energy difference about 1.6 kcal/mol between wrong and right nucleotide. Analyses indicate that the difference comes mainly from electrostatic enzyme-nucleotide association. Meanwhile, the interaction between Tyr639 and the end base pair of upstream DNA-RNA hybrid is enhanced by the incoming wrong nucleotide. This will prevent the insertion of the wrong nucleotide further. It may show that Tyr639 plays a key role in the selection.

Date&Time: August 30, 2013 (Friday), 14:30 – 15:30
Location: 606 Conference Room