The course aims to provide students with the knowledge and methodological tools needed to: Understand and predict the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structures of proteins. Understand the validation methods of predictive tools. Know and use the main databases relevant to structural biology.
Course Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of organic and inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology, and statistics.
Teaching Methods
Lectures covering both theoretical aspects and practical problems.
Assessment Methods
An oral examination to verify the skills acquired and the understanding of the main computational tools for structural prediction, including the ability to use molecular graphics software. Each student may choose one examination topic, and the instructor will select two additional topics.
Texts
Appunti di bioinformatica strutturale per biologi, biotecnologi e chimici. Oliviero Carugo, 2011, Pavia University Press. Protein Bioinformatics: From Sequence to Function. M. Michael Gromiha, 2010, Academic Press.
Contents
The course is divided into three main parts. Review and further exploration of the three-dimensional structure of proteins and their complexes, with an introduction to the use of molecular graphics to represent complex structures. Presentation of the main structural prediction techniques (secondary structure, conformational disorder, solvent accessibility, tertiary structure – homology modeling, fold recognition, and Artificial Intelligence methods – quaternary structure, functional annotation), as well as structural databases (PDB, CATH, SCOP, etc.) and strategies for professional updating. In-depth study of selected computational techniques useful in structural bioinformatics, such as support vector machines, artificial neural networks, and molecular mechanics and dynamics.
Course Language
Italian
More information
Students are encouraged to contact the instructor (by email or in person at the end of lectures) to discuss any pedagogical issues related to the course and to receive explanations and clarifications (in person or remotely). Students unable to attend lectures, for example due to work or health reasons, must contact the instructor to arrange meetings, also online, in order to receive supplementary teaching support and to verify their level of learning and understanding.
