Adhitya Balaji
Advanced Summer Research Scholar
Major: Molecular Life Sciences
Mentor: Lingling Chen
Mitochondrial heat shock protein 60 (mHsp60), encoded by the HSPD1 gene in the human genome, is a molecular chaperone within the mitochondria that has been found to play a vital role in many biological processes, but most importantly assisting in the folding of mitochondrial proteins [1]. mHsp60 can also contain mutations that have been implicated in various neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease. Due to its role as an essential protein and prevalence in various human conditions, many experts consider Hsp60 to possibly function as a biomarker and drug target in a variety of diseases ranging from cancer and diabetes to sudden infant death syndrome.
This project is focused on the ATP hydrolysis activity of various mHsp60 mutants. Since mHsp60 is a vital mitochondrial protein, our lab has hypothesized that these mutations will affect the rate of ATP hydrolysis. In order to assess this, we performed an ATPase assay for each of these proteins. Both the full length and GM-tail removed proteins were assayed for each mutation by themselves and with their co-chaperone.
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