Characterization of binding affinity and stoichiometry for growth factor and cytokines with chondroitin/dermatan sulfates
PD. Dr. Daniela G. Seidler
PhD projects to be supervised by Dr. Seidler can be designed in the area of production, fingerprinting analysis, molecular recognition, and biological activities of dermatan sulphate proteoglycans and growth factors.
Projects should be designed to include some, but not all of the following steps (as some growth factors are already available, a project does not necessarily have to start with step 1, but any project needs to include at least one step in India).
- Characterization of binding region of FGF-8 to DS and fine structure analysis of the sulfation pattern. With thermal titration calorimetry the thermodynamic parameters and the stoichiometry of the complex will be analyzed (collaboration Musti).
- Cloning of growth factors or cytokines which play a role in wound healing that potentially bind to DS.
- Purification of DS and growth factors for crystallography. Ideally, if sufficient amounts of the complex can be synthesized, we would like to determine the crystal structure (collaboration Rajan).
- Fine structural analysis of oligosaccharides derived from DS by mass spectrometry. Furthermore, mass spectrometry of non covalent complexes of undigested GAGs and FGF-8 and oligosaccharides obtained after enzymatic digestion and FGF-8 will be developed (collaboration Peter-Katalinić).
