Topics

The research activities of the team can be described along the two following main axes:

• Analysis of the functional repertoire of genomes, with special emphasis on the characterization of the dark proteome (i.e. sequences that do not correspond to any known family) and on the description of the functional diversity resulting from evolution. The methodological developments proposed rely upon considerations on protein structural features, which can be described using theoretical approaches (Hydrophobic Cluster Analysis (HCA), or Most Interacting Residues (MIR)). This research is especially applied to the analysis of proteins of medical and environmental interest, with focus on the evaluation of the structural and functional perturbation introduced in proteins under the effect of amino acid mutations.

• Analysis of macromolecule function, structure and dynamics at various scales, from the understanding of the molecular events occurring upon ionizing irradiation to the analysis of conformational variability of complexes from cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) images. This axis also includes the application of molecular modeling and molecular dynamics simulations to the understanding of the function and dysfunctions of proteins, as well as of their modulation in search of specific therapeutics. On the experimental level, complementary biophysical and biochemical approaches are applied to the characterization of membrane proteins, as well as of dynamic and complex protein assemblies (sHSPs, KEOPS, ...).