Ceren Tüzmen

Masters Student, Computational Science and Engineering

ctuzmen@ku.edu.tr

 

The main goal of my research is to understand the geometry of interactions between proteins by identifying

spatial motifs that are involved in those protein-protein interactions. The term motif is mostly used in structural

biology, referring both to the amino acid sequence and the secondary structure of the protein. Zinc-finger is a

well-known motif that can be an example for the former. However, sometimes identifying motifs from sequence is not

straightforward. The starting point of my research project is by selecting surface residues and grouping all triads in contact.

We then search for the necessary and sufficient conditions for triads to be classified as recurrent motifs

based on structural and catalytic similarities between amino acids of the members.