Syllabus
Taught in English, if non-Czech speaking students enrol.
1. Structure of biomolecules, structural databases, structure visualization, structure comparison, electrostatics
2. Experimental methods I - X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance
3. Experimental methods II - electron microscopy (negative-stain, cryo-EM), mass spectrometry
4. Computational methods I - protein structure prediction, ligand-protein docking
5. Computational methods II - molecular dynamics simulations Protein complexes, integrative structural biology
Annotation
The lecture will focus on the structural aspects of biomolecules, namely proteins, lipids, saccharides and nucleic acids. The course will provide the basics of experimental and computational structural biology methods. Students will get acquainted with the methods of X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. Computational methods will include predicting protein structures (homology modelling,
AlphaFold), molecular dynamics simulation, and studying the interaction of small molecules with proteins by docking methods. Students will also get familiarised with the methods of integrative structural biology. The applications of the discussed methods will be demonstrated by case studies in selected chapters of cell biology.