Upcoming webinar: A deep dive into biomolecular condensates using single-molecule FRET
Posted by FocalPlane, on 11 December 2023
We are delighted to open the registration for our FocalPlane features… webinar with Samrat Mukhopadhyay. The webinar, co-hosted with PicoQuant, will take place on Zoom on Thursday 11 January at 14:00 GMT (15:00 CET and 19:30 IST). Samrat will talk about recent research from his group at IISER Mohali describing the use of single-molecule FRET to study liquid-like biomolecular condensates, followed by a Q&A session. The webinar will be recorded.
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Registration will close 30mins before the start of the webinar.
![](https://focalplane.biologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/FF-with-Picoquant-600by335_final.png)
Abstract: Cells contain membrane-enclosed organelles that compartmentalize cellular constituents and regulate biochemistry. A growing body of fascinating research now reveals that there is also an alternative mechanism of spatiotemporally-controlled intracellular compartmentalization and organization via liquid-liquid phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids into noncanonical membrane-less organelles. These functional liquid-like biomolecular condensates can undergo aberrant irreversible phase transitions into gel-like or solid-like amyloid aggregates associated with a range of debilitating human diseases. In this talk, I will describe that single-molecule FRET studies offer an incredibly powerful approach to illuminating the exquisite inner workings of phase-separated biomolecular condensates. These studies allow us to dissect the coexisting conformational states and unmask the crucial molecular events that are otherwise skewed in conventional ensemble-averaged experiments. Our findings provide broad mechanistic underpinnings involving an intriguing interplay of sequence-encoded dynamically-controlled making and breaking of weak interactions that govern biological phase transitions involved in cell physiology and disease.