Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Mutational Analysis Of Hiv-1 Nucleocapsid Protein And Methods Development For Aptamer Discovery, Wei Ouyang

Chemistry - Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on structural and functional studies related to the interaction between proteins and nucleic acids and their applications. The work reported here includes two projects. The first part of the thesis is on the mutational and combinatorial analysis of HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein (NCp7). Sixteen mutants of NCp7 were constructed and over-expressed in E. coli . The dissociation constants (K _d ) between the mutant proteins and the major packaging signal in HIV-1, SL3 RNA, were measured using tryptophan fluorescence titration assay and/or isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) assay. Most mutants show tolerance of the mutation but some mutants, including …