15:30-16:15

How to understand hierarchically organized structures of complex fluid systems: from globular proteins to cellular structure of artificial red cells (HbV) and gel network of thermo-responsive microgels

Hierarchically organized fluid particle systems have attracted much attention. A globular protein already involves hierarchical intramolecular architecture. An extended small-angle scattering (SAXS) technique covering 0.05 ≤ q/nm-1 ≤ 28 can successfully monitor a wide range of the structures characterized by different length scales; from a lower resolution side, (1) the size of a whole molecule manifested in the radius of gyration, (2) the surface and shape, (3) effects of secondary structures like α-helix or β-sheet, and (4) intra-molecular radial distribution (interatomic distance distribution within a protein molecule). Now we can reconstruct three dimensional (3-D) structures of globular proteins in solution from the high-precision SAXS data, giving complementary information to protein crystallography despite lower spatial resolution.

Speaker

Prof. Takaaki Sato, Division of Chemistry and Materials, Faculty of Textile Science and Technology, Shinshu University, Japan

Chair

Dr. Lok Kumar Shrestha, MANA Scientist, MANA, NIMS