Marino Martinez-Carrion
Professor Emeritus, CBB
Ph.D. University of California-Berkeley
Office: 406 SCB
Phone: (816) 235-2256
E-mail: MartinezCM
Research Areas
Protein Engineering
Current Interests
"Many events essential to cell development, growth and proliferation depend on the state of protein conformation within the cell. These conformations are influenced by intracellular components including coenzymes, metabolites, other proteins and membranes. Our laboratory interests pertain to the characterization of those conformations of the proteins alone or when interacting with other intracellular components, either in their final functional states or in the path to acquire those final conformations. Particularly, we focus on the characterization of molecular events governing intracellular interactions of proteins that affect their localization and fate. This research involves the development of experimental approaches that permit the isolation and characterization of essentially transient states which are part of the mechanism of protein assembly, transport within the cell or folding. Preparation of specific proteins' variants through creation of mutants and chimeric forms is a preferred tool to procedure altered properties in the suspected regions of interest for proper intracellular interactions. We concentrate on mammalian proteins, which function in the cytoplasm or mitochondria as they interact with intracellular components such as chaperones, membranes or other multienzyme/multiprotein complexes. Since malfunctions of these intracellular activities are now being identified as important to biotechnology processes and to a growing number of health problems such as Alzheimer's, emphysema, cystic fibrosis and prion diseases, the molecular understanding of events is most relevant. Toward that end, among others, we employ powerful physical tools such as electrospin resonance, mass spectrometry and quenched-flow fast kinetics in conjunction with fluorescence and circular dichroism responses. Our overall aim is to correlate molecular events in in vitro systems to those occurring within the more complex intracellular environment."
Research Support
This work is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
