P8 - Structural biology of polysialic acid recognition

The aim of the proposal is to investigate the binding of polysialic acids to cellular proteins using structure elucidation and the associated affinity measurements. Polysialic acids are still poorly understood sugar structures on cell surfaces that play an important role in signal transmission and in some tumor formations. The proteins to be examined are on the one hand siglecs, sialic acid binding lectins, and on the other hand chemokines. In preliminary work, we were able to determinethe structure of a central domain of Siglec-11 with high resolution, and to express and purify larger regions of the protein. In terms of methodology, protein biochemistry, structural analysis by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy, as well as affinity measurement methods are primarily used. The project is particularly closely linked to projects 4, 5 and 6 in the research group.