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Essay on Biology Case Study

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Advanced Cell Biology II Step 1: How will you identify the “vital” cellular protein that the virus targets for degradation? (Hint: think proteomics). (3 pts.) First, since we know the viral RNA sequence and its targeting protein, we can investigate it in bioinformatics database, and can acquire some clues or hints about the target proteins. From the bioinformatics database, we might be able to find its structure, similarity with other proteins, functions, and binding domains. In other words, we can get some partial or complete amino sequences of the targeting proteins or information about likeness. Second, in order to further confirm the information about characteristics and function of the targeting protein that we have …show more content…

Since we have already known the amino sequence of the protein in previous step, we can narrow down the targeting ubiquitin ligase based on existing research data such as papers, NCBI data. There are many types of ubiquitin ligases in cells. However, we can make some candidate groups of targeting E3 based on the bioinformatics database. We will use antibodies which specifically bind to each type of ubiquitin ligase and impede its function. For example, the antibodies may covalently bind to the targeting ubiquitin ligase, and therefore, impede its function. Then, we will measure the amount of targeting protein. If we find that the amount of targeting protein is not changed in a cell, we can identify the target ubiquitin ligase. This is because only when the function of the target ubiquitin ligase is impeded, the degradation of the targeting protein will not be occurred. Step 3: What protein will be your drug target? What property of that protein will you target? Design an assay/approach to identify an antidote for “degron”. (4 pts.) Since "degron" targets a vital cellular protein for ubiquitin-dependent degradation, if we block its process of degradation, we can effectively turn off its effect. As mentioned earlier, ubiquitin ligase brings specificity. Since we have already known which ubiquitin ligase is

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