Lead Chief Investigator: Kate Jolliffe, The University of Sydney
Collaborating Chief Investigators: David Craik, Sonia Henriques
Summary
The binding of lipids by proteins is a key event in biology with a multitude of functional outcomes. Despite this, the available data on which proteins bind which lipids and whether the binding event is selective for a particular lipid is disperse and difficult to find. This project aims to create a database of known proteins that bind to lipids; to decode which amino acid residues are important in the binding events and to use this knowledge to develop probes for specific membrane lipids.
Relevance to the Centre
This project requires collaboration between CI Jolliffe, CI Craik, CI Henriques and CIPPS postdoctoral research staff. We will discover proteins capable of lipid binding and decode their binding selectivity. The knowledge we gain will be used to design probes for selective detection of membrane lipids and will enhance our ability to target cargoes to specific cell membranes through control of binding to their lipids, which will be of interest to other CIPPS CIs (e.g. CI Fairlie, CI Payne). It may lead to the development of lipid-specific probes for commercialisation.