Protein Engineering

Syllabus

Lectures:

• Introduction on enzymes and biocatalysis: Amino acid properties – Protein structure – Clasification of enzymes
• Introduction to molecular biology: From the DNA to the protein – Heterologous expression of proteins
• Principles of Bioinformatics – Tools of bioinformatics for protein analysis
• Introduction to protein engineering. Differences between directed evolution and rational design
• Error-prone PCR
• Protein engineering techniques based on recombination (gene shuffling, StEP, ITCHY, SCRATCHY) – Circular permutation
• Site directed mutagenesis – Primer design –Degenerate codons – Semi-rational design – Scanning mutagenesis – Iterative Saturation Mutagenesis – Reconstruction of ancestral proteins
• Computational protein design – loop grafting – de novo design of proteins – Prediction of protein folding
• Introduction to high throughput screening
• Surface display and its application in protein engineering
• Selected examples of protein engineering from literature

Projects:

• Identification and study of a metabolic / synthetic pathway
• Virtual cloning of a gene and creation of mutant libraries
• Establishment of a high-throughput assay

Learning Outcomes

The main aim of the course of protein engineering is the education of students in topics on protein evolution, attaining knowledge and skills related with state-of-the-art techniques on the field. The goal is the development of the capability to tackle synthetic challenges, exhibiting initiative and critical thinking for the development of novel biocatalysts, suitable for the desired process.

The expected learning outcomes and the competences that the students will acquire are the following:

• Deepening the microbiology and genetics foundations for the heterologous expression of proteins.
• Understanding the techniques of directed evolution and rational design of proteins.
• Deepening the knowledge of analytical chemistry and development of skills of reconstruction of knowledge for the development of innovative analytical tools with high throughput.
• Development of critical thinking in synthetic challenges that can be addressed via protein engineering.
• Development of communication, management and cooperation competencies.
• Development of competencies related to English language and terminology.