The Diverse Members of the MscS-like Channel Family
Event Details
- Type
- Monday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Thomas Walz, Ph.D., professor and head, Laboratory of Molecular Electron Microscopy, The Rockefeller University
- Speaker bio(s)
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The bacterial MechanoSensitive Channel of Small conductance (MscS) opens an ion-conducting pore in response to increased membrane tension, thus helping bacteria to survive hypoosmotic shocks. Cryo-EM structures of MscS reconstituted into lipid nanodiscs revealed lipids associated with different regions of the channel. By determining cryo-EM structures of MscS in different membrane environments and combining these results with molecular dynamics simulations and electrophysiology, we found that the associated lipids play distinct and critical roles in MscS gating, thus establishing the structural basis for the proposed “lipids move first” gating mechanism. In addition to MscS itself, E. coli also expresses five additional MscS-like channels that all share the same core structure with MscS but feature additional structural elements. Using YnaI and MscM as models, we are now exploring how their additional structural elements modify their function and what physiological roles MscS-like channels may play in E. coli.
Thomas Walz graduated from the University of Basel and received his Ph.D. in biophysics at the Maurice E. Müller Institute at the Biozentrum in 1996 under the mentorship of Professor Andreas Engel. He then went on to postdoctoral research at the Krebs Institute at the University of Sheffield (UK) and joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor in 1999. In 2007 he was promoted to full professor. Walz joined Rockefeller's faculty in 2015. Among numerous honors, he received a Genzyme Award for Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Sciences.
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- Open to
- Campus Only