Por Patrícia FN Faísca (Departamento de Física and BioISI, Faculdade de Ciências Universidade de Lisboa).

Protein β2-microglobulin (β2m) is the causing agent of two amyloidosis, dialysis related amyloidosis (DRA), affecting the bones and cartilages of individuals with chronic renal failure undergoing long-term hemodialysis, and a systemic amyloidosis, found in one French family, which impairs visceral organs. The protein’s small size and its biomedical significance attracted the attention of theoretical scientists, and there are now several studies addressing its aggregation mechanism in the context of molecular simulations. I will present an integrated computational methodology to explore the dimerization phase of β2m aggregation, which combines MD simulations (discrete MD and constant pH MD) with protein-protein docking simulations. I will show that this simulation approach is able to recapitulate experimental data and provide predictions regarding the monomers that trigger self-association and dimers able to growth into fibrils.

Short bio: Patrícia Faisca is an Assistant Professor (with habilitation) in the Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, at the University of Lisbon, and vice-director and principal investigator at the Biosystems and Integrative Sciences Institute. She received a PhD in Physics in 2002 from the University of Warwick as part of the Gulbenkian PhD Program in Biology and Medicine. She has a broad interdisciplinary education covering Physics, Biology and Mathematics. Her major fields of interest are biological physics and biophysics.