From: Wolf, Yuri (NIH/NLM/NCBI)
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 2:17 PM
To: ncbi-seminar@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Subject: CBB seminar, Jan 27, 3:00pm, 8-th floor

Dr. Mikhail Matz from Whitney Lab will give a seminar on Jan 27 (Thursday), 3:00pm, 8-th floor conference room (note the unusual time and location!).

Regards,

Yuri.

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Mikhail V. Matz
Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida http://www.whitney.ufl.edu/research_programs/matz.htm

GFP-like proteins: a perfect model to study evolution of protein families.

Homologs of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) synthesize their chromophores autocatalytically from their own residues, which takes two or three consecutive reactions. The diversity of colors and chromophore structures within this protein family reflects a number of processes that are of key interest for the basic studies in protein evolution, such as origin of new functions after gene duplication, convergent evolution, evolution of complex phenotypes and reverse evolution.  The proteins can be easily modified by mutagenesis and expressed in bacteria, while their function  - fluorescence - in such experiments can be quantified without even picking the bacterial colonies from the plate. The predictions of in silico evolutionary analysis can therefore be easily verified experimentally, providing unique opportunity to merge dry and wet science.